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Some happy articles for your perusal:
Via the Guardian: Trump supporters in St Louis: how ‘midwestern nice’ became a sea of rage
Via The Atlantic: Make America White Again? (Donald Trump’s language is eerily similar to the 1920s Ku Klux Klan—hypernationalistic and anti-immigrant.)
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@Bookdragon: And which GOP also ran do you vote for? To echo Huey Long (IIRC) there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Trump and Cruz–the most likely not-Trump at the moment. There’s a difference between making a protest vote and making a meaningful one.
@Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker: That was George Wallace (but close enough 😉
Grew up in Midwest; still have family ties. I have previously stated here that their anger at the system is quite understandable. Jobs are down in farming, down in manufacturing, and retail jobs have been swallowed up by Walmart. The manufacturing jobs were union jobs with good pay and benefits like health care and pensions. Farming is automated and requires large capital to run; a John Deere combine is a million bucks, but employment in East Moline is down. Walmart employees are famously not able to afford the low end products the company sells.
I was able to get a university education without going into debt nor direct financial support from my parents (they did not charge me rent or board.)
I don’t think that Trump is a rational choice, but I am not surprised that someone from Dubuque, Rockford, or Terre Haute is angry.
@Slugger: Sure, but in this case the question I am asking is not ”
why are some folks angry and therefore support Trump?” but rather: “Why is Donald Trump himself running?”
Sure, but in this case the question I am asking is not ”
why are some folks angry and therefore support Trump?” but rather: “Why is Donald Trump himself running?”
Because there is an untapped market for racist demagoguery, which Trump has decided that he can fill. Trump speaks plainly what the other candidates have been dog-whistling, and the racist rube rabble loves him for it. Trump wants to be loved.
Not sure why dog-whistles aren’t enough: are the racists tired of being courted away from polite company, or is Trump just reaching out to the ones who are too stupid to understand phrases like “drug testing welfare recipients”?
@Steven L. Taylor: Most American Political Scientists think that Americans are very different from Latin Americans, and that the typical right wing demagoguery of the caudillos/coroneis would never find a place in the United States.
They were wrong.
I’m considering changing my registration back to GOP in PA so I an vote against him.
And for who? Which of the GOPs is really any better?
@Gustopher: The point to dog whistles is that they are heard only by the dog. The trick was always to appeal to racists without letting it become obvious to the soccer moms.
I heard recently that Trump is losing support among women. Great tactic. Appeal to the supposed “silent majority” and piss off the minority that’s really a majority.
@gVOR08: Cruz is not better (in fact, he’s arguably worse).
Kasich is terrible on women’s health, and there’s the charter school fiasco, but he is in no way as horrible as Trump.
Rubio is (to quote Charlie Pierce) ‘a big sack of feathers’, and willing to sell his soul for poll numbers, but also nowhere near as horrible as Trump.
If I go that route, it would be Kasich or Rubio – no way in all the hells ever imagined by humankind would I ever vote for Cruz. The choice would depend on which is more likely to blunt Trump in PA, although my preference would be for whichever looks easier for either Dem to beat in Nov.
Not sure why dog-whistles aren’t enough
Passage of time. The dog whistle has dominated for forty years. You can only say the same thing so many times before it becomes tiresome to hear, and you end up preferring the unfiltered stuff.
Maybe it’s cyclical. People having no memory of unfiltered bile go for it until they become sickened by it and go back to the filtered.
@Slugger: “Grew up in Midwest; still have family ties. I have previously stated here that their anger at the system is quite understandable. Jobs are down in farming, down in manufacturing, and retail jobs have been swallowed up by Walmart. ”
Two points – first, these are the same guys who voted for the party which wanted to destroy all unions, which has effects.
Second, these are guys who look at Bernie, with at thirty year track record on the subject, and vote for Mr. Billionaire.
@Barry:
Mr. Billionaire
Trump can’t be bought. He was born bought.
I know. This is so frustrating. Bernie much better represents their concerns than Trump, but they won’t even think about voting for a Dem. They’re natural born Dems, but I don’t see any way to make it happen.
