"racism as scam" is worth thinking about
You'll certainly not have trouble getting venture capital for it.
Certainly meshes with race-as-construct.
There's something about high-salience racism, where people are defensively sticking to it, and low-salience racism, where the person has never thought terribly critically about it - it's the water they swim in. (As an example of the latter, although not racism, a lot of what I've learned about the prejudice E. Messily deals with would fall into this category. Well-intentioned people (including me) who had never really thought about what would make a situation hard for a deaf person.)
The scam resonates for high-salience racism.
I love a mark. Grab 'em by the pussy. Can't stop.
1- Indeed:
"Uber has raised about $11.5B from 14 rounds of venture capital and private equity investors."
2: I think the outcome of this election is that non-college educated whites (or maybe just your more fundamentalist type) have become an ethnicity. One with a really shitty ethnic food style.
One with a really shitty ethnic food style.
No favourite little non-college-educated-white restaurants tucked away somewhere in a strip mall? Surely Jonathan Gold will find one for us.
Which do you think is worse, their ethnic foodways, or their ethnic musical traditions?
I haven't read the link yet, but I think the most relevant answer to the "economic anxiety, no! racism!" debate remains that it's not economic anxiety.
It's true that Trump supporters are less high-income than the average GOP primary voter, which is vaguely interesting and may be a reasonable argument for the "economic anxiety" story. You could say that Trump's supporters are more economically anxious than the average Republican. However, you could also say that Trump got Republicans who normally skip the primary to vote in it this time. But Trump's primary supporters were still higher-income than the average American, and his supporters in the general election definitely are, like the average GOP voter going back decades. If someone wants to argue that Trump supporters aren't unusually racist, then they're going to have to identify a third possible motivation, because economic anxiety isn't backed up by the facts.
Any individual person may be both poor and racist, and some demographics or regions may have a lot of them. But they aren't Trump's base and can't meaningfully explain his popularity.
Folk art, folk voting, folk food.
Any individual person may be both poor and racist...
If they apply themselves.
7:
That's been coming a long time. Back in the 80's, Chicago had an Evangelical independent UHF channel, since acquired by PAX and which I used to look in on. It was clear that its audience was country/southern people living in or near our big city, and feeling a bit short of comfort. Beyond religious programming there was a fair amount devoted to a country lifestyle. One that particular struck me was an early Sunday morning show that was just a camera fixed to look on a field with grazing lifestock. That's it, nothing more. Sort of like that famous holiday broadcast of a fireplace. There were some cooking shows too.
And it was clear from all of this that the ethnic model of accommodation to the big city was consciously being followed by the programmers.
All those assholes were out there in the primaries talking about raising the retirement age and privatizing social security and Trump promised to leave it alone. So if you're a conservative who is or who knows someone who is strongly dependent on social security or Medicare, he was probably your guy.
I don't know a huge number of Trump supporters and the ones I know may be highly unrepresentative (none supported Trump in the primaries), but the ones I know are all very good fits for the economic anxiety story and really not at all into the racism story. They are less offended by the racism than they should be, for sure, but for them that's a point against Trump or neutral at best, not a big point in his favor. Whereas a common story is something like "I really can't afford my health insurance premiums (which are going up again next year!), and my insurance is so shitty that even after paying these premiums that I can't afford I still can't afford to actually get sick or injured (or go to the doctor if I do get sick or injured). Trump says he's going to fix this! He may or may not be successful, but at least he'll try. Hillary thinks the system is great as is."
14: And how many of them voted for the fucking asshole who's destroying the insurance they do have now? Not that I'm bitter or that it matters. Sigh.
A lot, I'm sure. I don't understand why.
7: Mostly holds without the "non-", too.
7 - probably not any worse than Filipino food, though.
In dealing with people who don't agree with the tenets of progressivism, progressives should probably, if they want any of those numbers, steer a path between the Scylla of "They're all bags of shit mixed with Jell-O tuna casserole" and the Charybdis of "You shall be redeemed from your false consciousness, blinded mob," which is a bit stale for anybody but college sophomores.
9: As I've nit-picked before, income isn't the same as income security, real or perceived.
The economics vs. racism once again plays into the whole thing about how the real voters are whites and minorities are a special interest group, e.g Without the minority vote Democrats would never win the presidency!
If you point out the holes in the economic anxiety argument by saying how poor minorities aren't swayed by Trump's positions, the response is that well those are minorities, the "real" (read: white) voters who don't see race favor Trump because of his populism.
The socialism of fools, as they used to say.
21: True, I wondered about acknowledging the same thing in response to 14. Mea culpa for eliding them. However, I'd go so far as to say that income is both a more important trait about a person and an easier trait to measure. Someone might be in a fine place in every meaningful sense but feel anxious if they watch the news too much.
One of the most striking lessons from exploring these maps is that the red non-metropolitan counties on election-night maps are internally heterogeneous, but always following the same spatial pattern: Democrats are clustered in town centers, along Main Street, and near the courthouses schools, and municipal buildings where workers are often unionized. They live along the old railroad tracks from the 19th century and in the apartment buildings and small houses in proximity to the mills and factories where workers were unionized in an earlier era.
.... In other words, the same political geography found in big cities is also on display in smaller post-industrial towns. There is a fascinating fractal-like relationship between population density -- which is the upshot of early industrial activity -- and Democratic voting.
.... [W]e have gazed for too long at election-night maps of counties or congressional districts that lacked sufficient granularity to differentiate between towns and their surrounding suburbs and rural peripheries. We also obsess over polls that lead us to assess categories like "low-education non-metropolitan whites," blinding us to the difference between deep-blue Johnstown, Pa., for instance, and the red county of Cambria in which it is located.
I feel like that guy forgot about race or is deliberately avoiding it to make his point. Terra Haute and Johnstown and places like that read as "really, really white" to people from cities, but they usually have 10 to 15% black populations. Which, to somebody from say, rural Cambria County, codes as "inner city." In addition to the big boost those black voters give to Democrats in these smaller cities, you have lots of self-selection. White people unwilling to live next to black people have moved to rural areas.
26 is so very true. Anyone two miles outside of town is fairly suspect in Heebieville - there's a massive self-sorting mechanism going on. To the point where "two miles outside of town" is way more likely to be nutty than someone who lives in the truly rural middle of nowhere by circumstance. The nearby country person is much more likely to be aggressively rightwing and living outside city limits to escape the oppressiveness of a town.
Well, 27 is also true in Heebieville, but the self-sorting pulls minorities into town.
I don't know a huge number of Trump supporters and the ones I know may be highly unrepresentative (none supported Trump in the primaries), but the ones I know are all very good fits for the economic anxiety story and really not at all into the racism story.
I don't think that your example proves what you say it does. Trump voters are characterized by racial resentment, which often but not always shows up as overt racism or racial prejudice.
So your acquaintances may not be overly racist, but that doesn't mean they aren't motivated by racial resentment.
The economics vs. racism once again plays into the whole thing about how the real voters are whites and minorities are a special interest group, e.g Without the minority vote Democrats would never win the presidency!
We all know that people who are the victims of prejudice are going to see that prejudice as disqualifying. This is obvious to everyone. It doesn't need to be included as a caveat in every paragraph. The question is why people who are not the victims of prejudice do not see the prejudice as disqualifying. Do they love prejudice and want more of it? Or do they just not think about it much and prefer to ignore the issue, or are not convinced the issue is a problem? Clearly the people who show up at Trump rallies are the former, but I don't think most Republican voters are.
If you point out the holes in the economic anxiety argument by saying how poor minorities aren't swayed by Trump's positions, the response is that well those are minorities, the "real" (read: white) voters who don't see race favor Trump because of his populism.
Obviously this is a total straw man. As if someone is actually saying "White voters are the real voters".
Just wanted to mention again that "haters vs. losers" is much pithier than "racism vs. economic anxiety". Sad!
31
Obviously this is a total straw man. As if someone is actually saying "White voters are the real voters".
No one is literally and earnestly uttering the phrase "white voters are the real voters", of course. But when Sarah Palin, Willie Robertson, and George Wallace use "real America", they actually are just talking about white people. (If it seems like nutpicking to complain about what those people are saying, well, the living ones of them are on the RNC convention stage.)
31
Obviously this is a total straw man. As if someone is actually saying "White voters are the real voters".
No one is literally and earnestly uttering the phrase "white voters are the real voters", of course. But when Sarah Palin, Willie Robertson, and George Wallace use "real America", they actually are just talking about white people. (If it seems like nutpicking to complain about what those people are saying, well, the living ones of them are on the RNC convention stage.)
35/36: If there's one thing this election has driven home to me it's that every thing a progressive has said about "racist dog whistles" is literally true.
I'm thinking of several people but partly one guy who is an enthusiastic Trump supporter because he thinks the system is shit but who is also currently working to organize a boycott of a local business that seems to be owed by someone with white supremacist connections, which he (Trump supporter) finds vile.
That kind of inconsistency is pretty common in people with lower levels of political attentiveness. Don't worry. Your friend is offset by a Klan member who is voting for Clinton because Trump's skin looked more orange than white to him.
38: My favorite genre of writing this election has been the, "You assholes, I defended you, but the fucking liberals were right about you all along."
I mean, there's a part of me that always thinks, "you really didn't think all those ultra-racist memes about the Obamas were suggestive of something real?", but I don't think it's literally impossible to believe in Republican ideology without being pretty racist (even on an implicit bias model), so I'll impute a certain amount of good faith.
I certainly didn't miss the undercurrents, but I didn't realize it was anything like a plurality.
41: The part that has honestly startled me is how many elite Republicans apparently truly believed that much of their base cared significantly about tax cuts. Like, did they not read their own polling data?
Lots of people care about tax cuts. The real trick is finding people who care about tax cuts that apply to people other than themselves.
I've often found myself supplying what I think would be a better argument for conservative positions than the ones you'll be much more likely to encounter.
Most people I know on the other side either don't argue at all, or do so from crazy facts.
I wonder if the guy I used to know who was trying to help breed a perfect red bull so that Temple could be rededicated so that the world would (finally) end is voting for Trump?
I'm Facebook friends with his niece, but asking seems awkward.
I think that economic anxiety is a bigger driver than people give it credit for. If you can also blame some dusky immigrant for the economic anxiety, so much the better. It's synergy, but the economic anxiety is quite real for a lot of people. The fact that xenophobia is also in the mix doesn't mean that the economic anxiety isn't justified. If you are a non-college educated white man you are competing directly with non-college educated immigrants (legal or otherwise), and you damn well know it. Trump voters aren't all morons, though they may be assholes.
I certainly didn't miss the undercurrents, but I didn't realize it was anything like a plurality.
I wish I could remember where I first saw it, but apparently there's preëxisting social theory (or whatever) that predicts this sort of thing, where the committed 5% of no-joke white supremacists can pull the 15-20% of (let's say) racially sensitive people to their left into being full-throated racists surprisingly easily. I mean, it's essentially a taboo situation, but once the taboo is broken, the acceptance is practically instant and entire. Which, of course, is basically what conservative Christians have been saying about tolerance of gays.
But anyway, I'd frame it this way: the people targeted by the dog whistles are substantially the people who are now proudly declaring themselves deplorable, even as they would have reacted with fury at the suggestion that they even see race just 15 months ago. But while it's not shocking that they're happy enough to turn the dial back on Atwater's progression, what is shocking (and explained by the aforementioned theory) is that they're embracing all this other shit at the same time. I mean, I don't know how many of them are themselves embracing anti-semitism, but they're clearly tolerating it from their peers in a way that I would have called unimaginable last year.
Whenever I see one of these assholes self-declaring deplorable status, I always want to ask, "So did you tolerate anti-Semitism before this election, or do you just prefer actual Nazis to centrist Democrats?"
Nobody offered to throw in a basket before.
48: But we've been over this a zillion times: any time you tease apart actual economic anxiety among non-college whites, it doesn't correlate positively with Trump support. That is, the more likely you are to compete with an immigrant for your job, the less likely you are to support Trump.
I'm willing to buy that economics are part of a package of status anxiety that afflicts Trump supporters--that is, that the cultural cohort that feels threatened by 21st century America is, as a whole, falling backwards relative to everyone else--but when it comes right down to it, Trump supporters were personally better off than supporters of Cruz, etc. They aren't the modern version of assembly line workers reacting against Great Migration blacks taking their jobs; they're more like the foremen in those factories, disgusted to see poor blacks doing better (and bringing in their ugly culture).
I'm pretty sure that, when the exit polls are complete, you'll see that Clinton wins non-college whites earning less than $50k.
I think that lots of people feel anxiety over the climate changing (summer in winter! floods!) but don't know where to place that sense of wrongness. So that anxiety gets added into their other conscious anxieties about change (immigrants with foreign ways! my kids will never have it good!).
I wonder if The Ohio State University losing, makes it more likely that Trump will win Ohio.
51 - Right. I'm willing to buy that there's an omnipresent economic anxiety that affects all aspects of American life. That it's meaningfully explanatory of Trump being nominated for the Presidency of the United States in particular just does not seem to be the case.
But what the Trump campaign has done is, for whatever reason, to weaponize purportedly "left" think piece authors who either desperately want to feel themselves aligned with an imaginary specifically-white specifically-working class that's mostly a fantasy, or pundits who think that (a mostly imaginary version of) working class white people are the only real voters who really matter. It's fucking ridiculous at this point., but people are really really attached to their vision of themselves as attached to some hypothetical white guy in a hard hat.
To be clear, that there are white working-class people is not a fantasy. The vision of such people inside e.g. Matt Stoller's head is mostly a fantasy.
You'll never know for sure what's in that head until you cut it open.
But what the Trump campaign has done is, for whatever reason, to weaponize purportedly "left" think piece authors who either desperately want to feel themselves aligned with an imaginary specifically-white specifically-working class that's mostly a fantasy,
You made this comment a while ago, and I appreciate it. I think it describes a real dynamic. I would just quibble with the claim that the Trump campaign is driving it ("weaponized"); it seems like many of the people writing those articles couldn't care less about Trump.
.The cities offer little more than chain stores, dreary Walmarts stocked with cheap shit made overseas. Food? McDonald's or Hardee's
This tweet made me wonder if they had ever even seen a violin.
Re: 39:
1. Congratulations, you may have found a black swan.
2. Racism is complicated. Lots of people are racist by any reasonable definition and yet would balk at the KKK or actual genocide.
3. I do think there's a little element of Trump bringing in people who don't normally vote, or getting people whose engagement is limited to voting to do more, whatever. He really isn't a traditional politician by any definition. This doesn't explain most of his support, but fair enough, Trump has an anti-establishment faction among his supporters. They aren't a majority or a plurality but they might be statistically significant.
31, 36- There are numerous instances of pollsters, campaign surrogates making comments focusing on the key support of certain groups as more valuable than others- all the analysis pieces after each election where various people go on TV and say that so-and-so doesn't have a real mandate because without the overwhelming support of minority group X, they would have lost. JMM documented a lot of them although given all the race talk in his more recent archives I'm having trouble finding them. At a minimum many Clinton surrogates made a similar argument in the 2008 primaries, that sure Obama was winning with overwhelming black support but the more important thing was that Clinton could reach out to whites.
Numberswise: is Trump's diehard primary support the exact same size as the tea party?
It's fucking ridiculous at this point., but people are really really attached to their vision of themselves as attached to some hypothetical white guy in a hard hat.
Don't white guys with actual jobs where they wear actual hard hats actually have a lot of money at this point? If they hate Hillary and love Trump it's because they are assholes or want their taxes lowered, just like white collar assholes. I think they are outnumbered even among white people by the actual poor and unemployed and unemployable.
63: No these are unemployed white guys that still wear hard hats just because it reminds them of the good old days before the factories all went to China.
Still others use them to carry their conjoined, weaponized pundit.
59.3: I think that is absolutely part of his appeal, although I think I saw something that his supporters are mostly regular voters*. But I think the enthusiasm is real: we're taken a particular day trip into the country in early October every single year since 2001, so including 3 previous election years. There's never been anything remotely like the profusion of Trump signs we saw this year.
TBH, it's as simple as this: for hoi polloi, Republican politics since the rise of Reagan (and, to a lesser extent, Nixon) has been a big entree of big business BS with side dishes of racism and identity politics for white people. Trump has relegated the big business stuff to the side dishes, and now the entree is a huge (well done) steak of white nationalism. And the people who reliably turned out for the former side dishes are now ecstatic for the steak. But, as I say, they voted whether their primary issues were central or peripheral to the message, as long as they were part of the message.
*now I don't recall what this was in comparison to; any large cohort of old white people will vote more regularly than any cohort of young people, or any cohort of African-Americans, but IIRC they were comparing against other primary voters, or perhaps general election GOP voters. At any rate, its debunked the idea that he was growing the electorate meaningfully
When I write my thinkpiece for The Atlantic, it's going to say the failure of the US elites is what drives Trumpism. This is a common theme, and R. Tigre is correct to ridicule it when the thinkpiecers ignore or downplay the role of racism, but there's a germ of truth in it.
The Trumpies understand, for instance, that the entire Washington Establishment banded together to foist a stupid war on the American people. They understand that the elite economic consensus led directly to the crash of 2008, and led further to a bailout that lopsidedly favored the criminals who brought about that crash. They know they're being lied to all the damn time, and they don't like it.
A lot of stupid comparisons have been made between Trump followers and Sanders followers, but this much they really do have in common.
The Trumpies know they're being lied to, but they're generally too stupid and racist to recognize when they are being lied to. In addition to appropriate incredulity, the Trumpies are also dupes. Their elites are telling lies that Trumpies believe, largely because those lies reinforce their racism or other prejudices.
So they believe it when Cruz says we need to refuse to pay our debts if they exceed the debt ceiling. They believe that Mexican immigrants are rapists.
Comey is, by general consensus, a member in good standing of the US bipartisan elite. Yet he and the media that covers him are either witting participants in the Trump phenomenon, or are being passively manipulated by other elites who are witting participants.
The crazification factor has always been there. I'm not purporting to explain the first 27% of the nuts. My explanation covers the other 15% or so who, after years of being abused by incompetent elites, are prepared to fall in line behind anyone willing to administer the beating that those elites deserve.
Agree with 67, although I'd clarify that the stupidity that leads to them being duped has been long-present. That is, they correctly recognize that the elites fucked up in 2008, but they also embraced, with great enthusiasm, the idea that the real villains were people who got mortgages they couldn't afford, not the grifters who sold them.
That is, Trump isn't simply the first person to come along and tell them that the elites fucked up, and so they accept whatever he tells them; at every turn, they try to pin elite failure on liberals and minorities. I guess what I'm saying is that they're systemically wrong on this stuff.
66: Trump's big breakthrough was the realization that dogwhistles are another form of political correctness. They're just an effort to take into account the feelings of those people, and why should we have to do that, ever?
although I'd clarify that the stupidity that leads to them being duped has been long-present.
Right. I believe it was Jesus who said, "The 27%, you shall always have with you..."
67- Yeah, I think that is substantially right. Of course resentment has always been an important factor in driving Republican votes, but ironically this time it makes more sense than usual.
In addition to appropriate incredulity, the Trumpies are also dupes. Their elites are telling lies that Trumpies believe, largely because those lies reinforce their racism or other prejudices.
In other words, the OP.
73: Yup. I think most of Arnade's commentary fails, but ogged identified a nugget of sense when he quoted Arnade to the effect that racism is akin to a scam.
Not exactly a new idea -- when Bob Dylan sang "Only a Pawn in Their Game" he wasn't coming up with an original theory.
75: I often lift ideas from the work of Nobel laureates.
One with a really shitty ethnic food style.
Don't make me fight you about barbecue.
The only house on the street with a Trump sign is giving out animal crackers. Which is more than any of the Romney or McCain houses did. They were also smoking while handing out the treats.
Invoking economics as an important causal factor doesn't necessarily mean that you're angling to exculpate Trump voters from the charge of racism. You can agree that they generally are racist, and that that is crucial to Trump's popularity, but also think that they probably wouldn't have gone for such a weird choice of candidate in such numbers if the Great Recession hadn't happened. And that can be true even if the bulge in Trump support is at relatively high income levels - it still might be that the whole Trump-support vs income curve is shifted up due to a sense that broad-based prosperity is over. Hitler, Germans in the 1930s, etc.
79 - I mean I guess that's reasonable, but if the Great Recession hadn't happened we probably wouldn't have President Obama and the world would be entirely different.
And, more importantly, the implied premise of the "economic anxiety" argument is that more social democracy/stability would assuage some or most of these voters and make them less racist. But it's almost certain that this isn't true. We know this because countries with tons more social democracy have similar levels to or greater numbers of ethnonationalist voters.
So "assume away the great recession and you'd have no Trump" might or might not be true, but it suggests basically nothing about policy or politics given that we've had a great recession. Better business cycle management, sure, but the US has done that better than just about anywhere in the world since 2008 (not perfectly, but good in relative terms) and look, Trump voters.
Right, once the explicit weaponised racism genie is out of the bottle it's very hard to get it to go back in. And I agree that an improved safety net and other social services are unlikely to do it. But I think that if the economy were really going gangbusters, leading to people feeling genuinely optimistic about their prospects in a way that makes them feel like agents rather than charity-cases, then they might put their racist fantasies on the back-burner. 1950s German-economic-miracle-style. That's a big ask, though.
And, more importantly, the implied premise of the "economic anxiety" argument is that more social democracy/stability would assuage some or most of these voters and make them less racist. But it's almost certain that this isn't true. We know this because countries with tons more social democracy have similar levels to or greater numbers of ethnonationalist voters.
If that is the implied premise of the "economic anxiety" argument, yes, it is disproved by the fact that in just about every European country the only winning electoral issue at the moment is "immigrants bad". But I think the implied premise of the "economic anxiety" argument is that people perceive their lives as getting worse, with or without a welfare state. Whoever you are, if you feel fortunate you start feeling generous. And vice versa.
I've had my differences with Tigre, but he's right on in this thread.
If you're not racist, except when you get worried about money, guess what? You're a racist.
Don't make me fight you about barbecue.
What does that have to do with white people?
I think the comparison of the US to European social democracies is not very good. Europe is seeing a refugee problem right now that would have the USA voting for Trump in overwhelming numbers. Of course their xenophobia is worse, regardless of economic conditions. The nature of the migrants is different too, scary muslims vs mostly boring catholics.
I also think the idea that more social programs would make a difference pretty wide of the point. People, especially white men raised on the great American fiction of meritocracy, want to stand on their own two feet, not get government handouts.
Racism is obviously playing a huge role, but even people making well above the median can feel economically insecure. Some of the Trump support I'm seeing is coming from people who've been screwed by the H1B program, or witnessed others in their position get screwed by it, for example. That's real economic insecurity hitting people making upwards of 70k a year.
if the Great Recession hadn't happened
We really need to be looking farther back than that. Union busting, wage erosion, etc is a several decade phenomenon and the Democrats played an active role. Let's not forget that our which current presidential candidate's husband gave us NAFTA and preferred trade status with China.
There's a certain flavor of leftist that likes to pretend the free trade and immigration opposition is just racism and hand waves away or willfully ignores that these things have had a real negative effect on white working class people. I mentioned it in the Brexit thread. No one else here but Moby probably remembers when working a meat factory was a good working class job for white people but those towns sure as hell do. Similarly, white UK guys in the building trades aren't anti immigration purely on principle. They're seeing real significant hits to their income. People aren't just going to go quietly into that good night.
I didn't personally do much meat packing.
"Meat Factory"? What are you, some kind of coastal elite?
You probably have a "duvet" instead of a "bed hat".
89: Heh, I didn't even realize I used that term. I took the day off and might have had a few Halloween drinks.
But yes, those are real effects. The loss of packing plant jobs to immigration was almost certainly smaller than the steady stream of agricultural jobs lost automation (as near as I can tell, my cousin works about as much land as five or so guy would have worked fifty or sixty years ago), but it was real. And that fact that it was illegal really helped destroy the unions.
But on the other hand, [prepares 950 Powerpoint slides explaining how economics has determined that immigration is actually good and all those things may have happened simultaneously but it was a coincidence]
And meat packing is just one example. There's been decades of offshoring of everything from textiles to shoe factories to autos. All with the companies talking about how they have to in the name of staying competitive. Meanwhile it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that retro Jordans are still 200 bucks a pair and that the standard price on a pair of Levis on their website is 60 bucks. Those things can't be made domestically at those prices for a profit? Really?
There's a certain flavor of leftist that likes to pretend the free trade and immigration opposition is just racism and hand waves away or willfully ignores that these things have had a real negative effect on white working class people.
True, but there's a different flavor of leftist that likes to willfully ignore the fact that a lot of white working-class people are racist in addition to having legitimate economic complaints. The two aren't mutually exclusive! (And of course racist white middle-class professionals are very common too, and probably a bigger part of Trump's base than the white working class guys that the thinkpieces all focus on.)
93: Immigration isn't just good. Same with trade without too any restrictions. They're necessary. It's just that there are people hurt by it. (Certainly not 40% of the American electorate.)
(And of course racist white middle-class professionals are very common too, and probably a bigger part of Trump's base than the white working class guys that the thinkpieces all focus on.)
This seems superficially unlikely, since he's losing white people with college educations and winning white people without college educations by 45 points. But it makes sense that those educated and affluent people who ARE voting for him are more likely motivated by racism, since they do not have many economic complaints.
It's just that there are people hurt by it. (Certainly not 40% of the American electorate.)
Right. Those people who have been directly hurt by trade and immigration definitely do exist in non-trivial numbers, but there aren't that many of them.
98: Yeah, "professional" may not be quite right given how badly he's doing with college-educated whites. Lots of those people are racist to varying degrees, but they're mostly voting for Clinton. I do think there's a different type of middle-class white person who isn't necessarily college-educated but makes enough money to be comfortable (e.g., car dealers) that is supporting Trump primarily on the basis of racism, and that these people probably outnumber the ex-factory workers and coal miners who also form part of his base.
Be fair: some of these middle class white guys might be motivated by sociopathic selfishness. They might not even see human color.
101 is a fair point, but I think those guys generally prefer mainstream Republicans and are only voting for Trump reluctantly.
If only Sean Hannity hadn't reminded them that Clinton was Satanic.
Just wanted to fill out all corners of the Venn Diagram of Deplorables.
Immigration isn't just good. Same with trade without too any restrictions. They're necessary.
"Necessary" to certain moneyed interests for sure. But if that "necessary" isn't for the well being of existing citizen voters than maybe it deserves a bit of the skeptical hippo side eye.
Immigration is necessary in an aging society where old people get government pensions. That much everyone can agree on.
104: Fair enough. I do think that is one component of the Trump coalition, though a lesser component compared to his base of racists and rapists.
Immigration is necessary in an aging society where old people get government pensions. That much everyone can agree on.
The Japanese would beg to differ.
Granted that their solution of using robots instead of immigrants wouldn't play well with the Trumpites either.
109: I guess? What's a profession that doesn't (in practice) require a degree these days?
The thing that drives me up a wall about some of the journalists (and many of the politicians) who accurately note that immigration's costs and benefits are not evenly spread across the US-born population...is that they often don't support the policy fixes that would address this.
E.g., They don't support human capital investments that would help American-born workers build skills in in-demand industries; they don't support greater unionization (including of immigrant workers) to give workers more bargaining power; they don't support re-examination of econ development incentives that result in companies moving from jurisdiction to jurisdiction chasing tax breaks; they don't support labor-management partnerships that support continuing training for existing workers; they don't support immigration reform that would shrink (not eliminate, I'm not crazy) the pool of unauthorized workers and put a floor on wages; they don't support better K-12 education for young black and Latino males who are most at risk of dropping out and having lousy employment prospects due to immigration; they don't support international labor-standards agreements that try to establish international norms [and thereby eliminate the US "disadvantage"] on environmental and worker-safety regulations....
And they sure as shootin' don't support -- generally in my experience won't even acknowledge -- that US trade and foreign policy have played a huge role in driving migration via push factors that shove people out of their home countries and make trying their luck in the US seem like the best of a bad lot.
So, yeah. In a different election season -- perhaps with Bernie running against Hillary -- I'd like to see a full-throated debate on how we deal with these issues. But instead we have one person who wants to ban an entire religion from even entering the US, and another who has a reasonably sensible if not very imaginative immigration reform agenda.
Guys, again. Among white people income is the least correlated factor by far. It's lack of education and religion and that's pretty much it. People most affected by immigration -- be they meat packers or others -- aren't voting for Trump. He seems to have special appeal with non-College-educated relatively prosperous white people in suburbs and exurbs. These are guys drawing pensions from jobs, not the ones kicked out of their jobs by the evil Mexicans. The entire story you're anxious to tell for whatever other maybe lefty reasons is pretty much straight bullshit as an an analysis of what's driving Trump support. Just fucking stop spreading misinformation and bullshit.
I would much rather be overrun by the brown horde than live through the robot uprising. Much more festive atmosphere. Better food.
111: I'm thinking of plumbers and other skilled trades. I had the impression that's a pretty Trumpite group, but I suppose I just picked it up over time.
115: Trades != professions. They do make good money, are disproportionately white, and probably support Trump overall.
I'm thinking of plumbers and other skilled trades. I had the impression that's a pretty Trumpite group
My profession sprang to mind and I've got a lot of coworkers who spent time in construction, mining, prior to their current job.
105: I don't think it's just necessary for moneyed interests. At the end of World War II, the U.S. set up a world economy to try to prevent another world war. This was largely successful (compared to, you know, Hitler) and key parts of it involve trade and the mobility of people. Also, Americans don't travel abroad much. Without immigrants, the uncultured, asshole-American factor would be through the roof.
I think I'm just using "profession" in a narrower sense than others.
Right. It's literally the PROSPEROUS blue collar white guys that are the core Trump voters, or retired ones. If they're religious. Just fucking stop spreading bullshit. I'm so sick of it.
This was largely successful (compared to, you know, Hitler)
To be fair, working-class white people did pretty well under Hitler, at least for a while.
121 is massively overrated per Tooze.
They have admittedly done better under not-Hitler, in general.
Maybe always comparing things to Hitler doesn't help when I really need to compare things to Hitler?
You know who else did well under Hitler?
He was more of a reverse-cowgirl guy.
I'm willing to buy that economics are part of a package of status anxiety that afflicts Trump supporters--that is, that the cultural cohort that feels threatened by 21st century America is, as a whole, falling backwards relative to everyone else
Do we know if, all else equal, being racist worsens your economic chances?
I think I'm just using "profession" in a narrower sense than others.
Your use is the more technically correct one. That is, insofar as people are using the term for technical reasons (demography or whatever), they're using it your way. IME, there's not actually a big gap between the common usage and the "technical" one (once you get beyond the sort of literal understanding that any skilled job is a profession), but one exists.
What I was taught was that professions are vocations in which there is a code of ethics above and beyond what proficiency and competence demand, but I have no idea if that's actually a typical definition. But to 117, when people talk about the professionalization of police forces, they don't just mean adding more white collar-looking tasks (not to tell gswift things he knows better than I).
I think that means I don't have to try to be professional. Which is good, because I think professionals would make fewer jokes about Hitler having sex.
130: Cops do seem like a gray area, though. Increasing professionalization of police is a real phenomenon, but it still isn't considered essential for a cop to have a college degree AFAIK.
I guess that is consistent with what I was saying before about professionals supporting Trump, though. I dunno.
112- Dean Baker from the planet money thread would want to add that those supporting 'free trade' never support for instance allowing doctors, dentists, and lawyers, or other professionals to immigrate here.
People keep saying that about doctors, but I work with very many immigrant doctors. Also, lots of them that are foreign, where I suppose I must be taking a job from the native SAS coders.
There are quotas. Lots more would come if they could.
So are the unions representing working-class people who could benefit greatly from less expensive medicine pushing hard to increase those quotas? (For all I know they actually are, admittedly. But still, that's not how the rhetoric generally goes.)
You can't say "Trump loyalist" with "trompe l'oeil."
"One America, one Trump, one payer!"
Right. It's literally the PROSPEROUS blue collar white guys that are the core Trump voters, or retired ones.
Those are the core Republican voters. Many of them are the fabled small-business owner. Nobody votes Republican more than those guys. Whether it is Trump or any other Republican.
He seems to have special appeal with non-College-educated relatively prosperous white people in suburbs and exurbs. These are guys drawing pensions from jobs, not the ones kicked out of their jobs by the evil Mexicans.
I haven't followed the stats much, beyond a couple glances at 538 and their numbers using self reported incomes on exit polls type stuff.
But I can tell you what that looks like from here. When I came on there was a 20 year, 50 percent of salary pension plan in place that I'm vested in. It goes up from 20 years by 2 percent a year so 25 years = 60 percent, 30= 70 percent, etc. Keep in mind that's a non Social Security contributing plan.
The new plan for hires as of summer 2011 is a 1.5 percent of salary by year with a 25 year minimum so 37.5 percent, still no SS on that plan, and no post retirement health care.
Something to think about when we look at the voting trends of relatively well off white guys with no college degree.
Something to think about when we look at the voting trends of relatively well off white guys with no college degree.
I'd like to see the demographic breakdown of people with public-sector retirement plans, and nationally, not just in overwhelmingly white states like Utah (where Trump isn't doing that great anyway). I'd also like to see the number of white guys with no college degree who have jobs with a defined-benefit pension, full stop.
I'd also like to see the number of white guys with no college degree who have jobs with a defined-benefit pension, full stop.
I believe you can get a close estimate of this by looking at the number of police and fire fighters in the country.
144: Yeah, fair enough. There are some white guys in other government agencies, though. (Not me. Alaska has a defined-contribution plan, which has not yet vested for me, and I'm ambivalent about staying until it does. We don't get Social Security either, and benefits from the plan reduce the Social Security we get from other jobs. And, come to think of it, this is probably true of cops and firefighters here too.)
Speaking of which, check out these assholes. Really making people feel safe.
143: That's a public sector retirement in a well managed financially stable white state so odds are a lot of folks are only seeing a scene that's worse.
144: Your big city pd's like L.A. and NYPD are among or maybe the most integrated job in the country.
That's a public sector retirement in a well managed financially stable white state so odds are a lot of folks are only seeing a scene that's worse.
For sure. Me, for example.
148: I've told you to move down here before. At this point it's on you for ignoring me.
There's no way you could pay me enough to beat what I'm getting here, economic insecurity and all. Maybe some day.
Your big city pd's like L.A. and NYPD are among or maybe the most integrated job in the country.
Sure, you reduce the number based on those factors, then you increase it based on other factors like the number of UAW members over age 55, etc.
Not that I'm at all averse to moving to Utah. But seriously, you'd have to pay me a lot. Alaska is still a high-wage state.
It's also heavily unionized (though I'm personally not in a union), which scrambles a lot of political heuristics.
But very weakly pro-Trump! More scrambling!
Alaska is still a high-wage state
And how's that long term outlook with petroleum prices, not to mention cost of living. You're already from a weird religion with arbitrary diet restrictions, you'd be fine!
And how's that long term outlook with petroleum prices, not to mention cost of living.
Terrible! But I like it enough here that I'll stay as long as I can. Which admittedly may not be very long. This next legislative session is really crucial.
You're already from a weird religion with arbitrary diet restrictions, you'd be fine!
Well, I mean, I don't actually follow those restrictions in general. But I'm sure I would do fine in SLC, which is approximately the same size as Anchorage.
I'm less certain about other parts of Utah, but I've spent enough time in other parts of the rural Southwest that I'm sure I could at least get by.
It turns out that being antisocial is adaptive in many places! Who knew?
A ferocious, powerful peregrine falcon, that's who.
113: One of the more annoying trends I've seen this election is liberals seizing on the "poor whites support Trump" myth as an excuse to indulge in completely shameless class snobbery. "I don't feel sorry for those losers. They should have stayed in school" is a literal quote from an LGM thread a while back.
And it's not like the economic breakdown of Trump supporters is a secret. It's been out there in major media sources for months.
Dean Baker from the planet money thread would want to add that those supporting 'free trade' never support for instance allowing doctors, dentists, and lawyers, or other professionals to immigrate here.
This may be a US thing, if it's true at all. The EU version of free trade absolutely involves professionals migrating. And, indeed, even anti-EU but pro-free trade Tories prefer immigration by professionals over any other kind. Doctors especially, as it makes the NHS cheaper. The idea, other than lazy racism, being that the professionals will supposedly contribute more to the economy and take fewer benefits.
136: There are lots of quotas for unskilled immigrants also. The difference is that illegally immigrating really doesn't work if you want to be doctor. You have to go through officials channels for jobs that require a degree.
161.2 is true up to a point, but European health workers are running for the door since the referendum in numbers that may well be the final straw for the NHS as we know it, and you'd have a hard time finding a Tory who cared much.
Well, sure, hatred of Bulgarians trumps everything else and they are Tories after all, so what do they care about the NHS? But the point is, give them a choice between a professional and an unskilled or manual labourer and they'll take the professional every time.
What if the professional is short and smells funny?
I keep trying to read _hillbilly elegy_ or interviews about it and quitting in rage, which is unpleasant and useless. It all feels like all the anti -Reconstruction special pleading again in shorter sentences, and why I should think that agreeing this time would be any better is still not clear.
(And the Democratic positions mooted sound like straw men, though that may be due to differences among Democrats.)
160: Truth. Although in my experience it's less about snobbery and more about liberals in the upper middle and upper classes really really not wanting to believe that they have coworkers/neighbors/other members of the PTA in their affluent communities that are really racist, sexist, or classist (or willing to tolerate racism, sexism, and classism to save a few dollars on taxes).