Trump very clearly represents the will of an immense number of people and may represent the will of the majority of Americans in fact. For both Clinton and Trump that representation is far beyond those that actually voted. Clinton's camp will be the first to tell you that supposedly a lot of her supporters didn't vote in the election.
You say Trump represents straight white males (you imply that's all he represents). Trump won the vote of 53% of white women.
Trump won the popular vote in 30 of the 50 states. The popular vote in just two states - NY & CA, neither of which Trump could have ever competed in - determined that popular vote gap.
Like it or not, the fact of the matter is that claiming that only white men supported Trump is incorrect. Going further and trying to dodge the point by claiming that only numbers matter is reductionist and doesn't address the kaleidoscopic issues that a diverse socio-economic-regional population has.
Do you know any interview or documentary of talking to samples of these populations? I wonder very much what they think. The interviews so far for me personally were showing that they are "morally deaf", but I am sure that this is not all the story (I probably living in my bubble).
I can't suggest an interview or documentary, but if you want to keep tabs on how conservatives/republicans/midwesterners etc. think, I highly recommend reading this blog:
Pardon the generalization here, but I know a lot of "non-college people" who support things like Trump and Brexit and would like to offer up an interpretation as to what many of them are thinking. Bear in mind they skew a bit older as well so they've seen a lot change.
If you're a college educated person and/or a tech person and you live in a big coastal city the past few decades have probably been pretty great, these cities have boomed, there are all these new industries that have sprung up, they've produced great jobs, you are smart and you work hard, same as the people around you, and everyone has gotten more conscious about big picture issues like the environment, gender equality and multiculturalism.
If you are non college educated, you don't live in one of these booming cities (or you live in a shitty part of town), and you haven't gotten involved in the new economy the picture may be very different. A lot of people in this category have witnessed the decimation of the manufacturing base and the communities around it. They've watched meth sweep over the country and ruin lives. They've dealt firsthand with the ramifications of teen pregnancies, broken homes, perpetual joblessness. All problems which affect "non college" people much more than they affect those with college degrees and stable white collar jobs.
So a lot of these people have seen the world get worse, not better. Their focus is on stability in their personal lives and it's getting harder. When you take that as a given and you start talking about issues of morality and idealism they might even get offended - what makes you so great that you spend your time worrying about this stuff instead of the practical concerns of keeping your job, covering rent and food, and staying away from shit that'll ruin your life (booze, drugs, bad people, whatever)?
They have no idea what to do other than vote for someone who at least sounds like them and sounds like he wants to help. That definitely wasn't Hillary. It wasn't Obama or McCain or Romney either but when Trump came on the scene they perked up and they went to the polls. And in fairness if he ends up doing stuff like building oil pipelines and cutting funding to the EPA, then he's creating jobs they can do and giving the finger to the comfortable asshole academics who've never had to worry about these problems.
They are not morally deaf IMO. They just have more immediate problems to worry about in their lives (or perhaps did at some point and still maintain those attitudes).
The difficult but clear solution in my eyes is to help them get what they deserve as fellow citizens, and which "college people" have, which is jobs, safe neighborhoods, and stable lives.
According to you, the people outside these booming cities suffer from drug and alcohol addiction, failure to use birth control, failure to build healthy stable relationships and joblessness. (Strangely, the illegals Trump wants to deport don't seem to have trouble finding a job - weird how looking for a job and accepting one when found solves that problem.)
These people are morally deaf. They want to blame others their choice not to work, their choice to do drugs, their choice not to use a condom. Trump isn't proposing to fix the problem of people making bad choices. He's just telling these people that he's one of them and he blames others for their choices.
(Note: the same critique applies to many solid-blue subgroups, including groups who's inherent virtue is treated as a sacred cow within Blue America. I am explicitly NOT claiming Trump voters are somehow uniquely bad in this way.)
What do you think of the articles that have been posted to HN about how people make worse decisions when they're under financial stress?
I think it's true and can explain behavior that is both self-destructive and selfish. To solve the problem you have to figure out how someone like that can get themselves out of the vicious cycle. Even if they are morally deaf I don't think much gets accomplished by focusing on that point.
Add to this the fact that certain behavioral strategies may seem self-destructive from one perspective but necessary from another. Drug use for example has nasty consequences but is frequently a mechanism for coping with some other very nasty problem. And you have... well, I don't know what, but a complicated world.
I am not saying Trump supporters are all jobless drug addicts but I absolutely think lower education, lower income demographics swung toward him because they have more direct experience with the dark side of modernization and the political establishment was tone deaf to this.
(Also, of the factors I mentioned I think the lack of college degree is the one most heavily correlated to lower income, lower employment, higher addiction, higher unintended pregnancy etc. not which city they're in.)
The Indian and Chinese ones are easy to explain - you get the best of those countries. Those countries in turn have suffered from brain drain for the past several decades.
You seem to be suggesting humans have an intrinsic quality - some are the "best", others are the presumably the worst. This intrinsic quality is then what drives behavior.
Of course, if people internationally can be "the best", then perhaps domestically people can be "the best" (or not) as well. For example, perhaps bad inner cities and Trump-voting rust belt regions are full of people who are very much NOT the best.
Your conclusion does not logically follow. Sure, some people may not be "the best", but that does not mean that an entire group of people (your "bad inner cities and Trump-voting rust belt regions") can be grouped into best or not-best. There will be a ranking of people (based on any criteria) in any region.
A charitable interpretation of both my comment and the comment I'm replying to is that the groups we are describing have a higher/lower proportion of people who are "the best" and "the worst".
Well 1) is easy to explain: children of upper class parents get supported financially; they also have a social safety net, so if they are out of work, their social circle will help them get one.
I'd say this is deeply unfair to people living in communities decimated by meth just as I would say it's deeply unfair to people living in inner cities. This is not to say that drugs alone are the problem, but that there are a multitude of factors creating an ugly feedback system.
Words are difficult to convey this sort of thing so I'm going to do my best:
1) The primary source of jobs in the region leaves due to macro issues that have nothing to do with the population. Since people have bought homes, their capital is fixed and they can't move. (Societal networks exacerbate this) 2) and 3) make leaving even harder.
2) Loss of jobs and no other options lead to deeply depressing situation. People turn to drugs in order to escape the crushing hopelessness. This feedbacks into 1) by making investment unattractive (which then feedbacks into 2)).
3) War on Drugs means that families get broken up as people inevitably get arrested and sent away for ages. Crime rate goes up. Feeds into 1) and 2).
Note that is vastly simplified and that the problem can begin anywhere on this three point system. As such the culture of the area transforms to reflect this new reality. When you are born into this kind of system and this is all you know, the chance of escape diminishes rapidly. I remember reading "The Corner" and how black males growing up in Baltimore had accepted that they would be dead by 20 and that having a kid was the only way that they were likely to have any kind of legacy. I don't know if it's easy to appreciate how haunting that must be.
I mean to some extent you are right. We all should be moral superpeople and be able to withstand every test of character than comes our way. Frankly though we are not all built that way and that's just reality. People are going to falter and people are going to fall into a morass and not get back up. Whipping them with their failings is not going to get results from everyone. Everyone needs different things. And some people just can't overcome their circumstances.
It kind of reminds me of the Ouroboros: where one thing ends and the other thing begins is unclear and possibly impossible to discern.
Furthermore, I claim it does not require us to be "moral superpeople" to get past this situation. There are many populations with vastly worse problems than (1) who don't turn to drugs, unplanned pregnancy, abandoning their wives and refusing to work. For example, the population of rural Mexico.
In fact, it's this tendency for rural Mexicans to be "moral superpeople" that created one of Trump's key platforms. Mexicans are willing to move, abandon their societal networks, find a job and work it. Isn't this why Trump wants to build a wall?
You realize that the sunk cost fallacy proves what I'm trying to say? Most people really struggle with that sort of thing. It's one of the reasons why behavioral economics has taken off in recent history. People are not perfect actors.
Of course there are people with problems who don't turn to drugs that are also poor. The point I'm trying to make is that saying the best and only solution isn't necessarily to say that people are lazy and that they need to shape up. Or build a wall for that matter.
It's also worth noting that the reasons why Mexicans can move and abandon their societal networks is because of the strength of the dollar versus the peso, the cost of living they are willing to put up with, and the work they are willing to do. Where is an American going to go that gets a similar instant upgrade in purchasing power? What about the societal reality that people in America are not willing to do backbreaking labor like picking fruit?
...the cost of living they are willing to put up with, and the work they are willing to do...people in America are not willing to do backbreaking labor like picking fruit?
Yes, Mexicans are willing to do what it takes, while many Trump voters prefer to sit at home refusing to work and doing meth.
I was making the following core points: 1) the Trump voters apatters was defending suffer mainly from self-inflicted problems and b) Trump is exploiting their desire to blame others for their own bad choices in order to take power.
You haven't disagreed with me at all on this point. All you've said is that this behavior is somewhat predictable. I agree, it can be predicted. So what?
Some Mexicans are willing to do what it takes. Don't overgeneralize. It's not like the entire population of Mexico is in the US right now. Races and nationalities are not homogeneous.
Is there a segment of the population blaming others for their problems? Yes.
Are they totally wrong? No. They're not entirely right but they aren't entirely wrong.
Is it all self inflicted problems? Hell no. There is no way I would argue that. It is simply factually incorrect. People working in the auto factories with a high school education aren't responsible when the price of steel craters. Assuming that everyone has to go college is a tenant of faith that needs to change.
Characterizing a significant portion Trump voters as lazy meth heads is an incredible generalization. From a sheer numbers perspective I don't doubt it's sizable, but that would be in the sense that 100k is a large number. I think people want to work. I don't think people know where to look or what to do.
Is Trump exploiting these people to gain power?
As far as I can tell, in the usual way that politicians do things. Whether or not Trump can solve their problems is not something I feel I can predict. That's not to say I think Trump will be some kind of economic Jesus. I mainly feel that the future is incredibly difficult to predict and usually it's the result that no one expects that ends up being true.
To answer the last question (can he solve) the answer is probably no. Simply because he has no skills in negotiating Washington whatsoever. Its only been a few days but so far its all "sign anything put in front of him". Having no plan except to win the Presidency, and that's been accomplished, I think he's running on fumes.
If a former autoworker refuses to move to where the jobs are, and refuses to work in landscaping/elder care/other field that isn't dying, their plight is their fault.
It seems like the thrust of your comments in this thread is that some people are better than others. That is to say they are more moral, more intelligent, harder working, or whatever else.
Fair enough. What conclusion -- be it a policy decision, social structure, general attitude toward the world or whatever else -- does this line of thinking lead you to?
Specifically, those people are morally deaf, and we should recognize that their immediate problems are their own fault. The difficult but clear solution is for them to fix their own problems, and the rest of us should feel no particular obligation to take any action to help them (particularly if they are unwilling to help themselves).
Lots of self centered emotionally driven actions and decisions most often leads to counter productive results though, so I don't know you can justify someone making things worse as not being his fault.
I also think you are speaking for other people with whom you seem to have no connection too. Maybe you think they're just voting for Trump, because they like his promess of bringing jobs back, or maybe, they're voting for him cause they want Iranians out of their country based on pure racism.
While the other sibling comments showed the voting data, it need to be added that the top reason people voted for either candidate was that their candidate weren't the other candidate. Two of the three slogans of the Clinton campaign reflected this with "I'm With Her (and not with him)" and "Love Trumps Hate".
For approval ratings, the same goes. Both candidates had the worst approval rating of any candidate in US history. A rather clear message that neither of the two dominating political parties in the US represent the people.
OP's premise was in part that only straight white males supported him. The fact is, the majority of white women supported him as well. So OP was wrong on a very, very big part of the premise being floated.
The notion that it's useful to pretend Trump represents a tiny group of supporters, for personal emotional comfort over facts, isn't going to be useful in actually trying to counter bad policy. Step one is recognizing that Trump has a very large base that put him into the White House. That he only lost the popular vote by 2.8 million (2.x% of all votes) with California and New York included, is astounding and points to just how large his actual base is. Not to mention the fact that Hillary didn't manage to pull a majority of votes, versus eg Obama's 51.1% in 2012, Obama's 53% in 2008, and Bush's 50.7% in 2004.
Across multiple poll providers, his approval -7.2[1] (although this hasn't updated with the latest Rasmussen poll). Rasmussen is the only provider that has him in positive territory.
Interestingly, Fox gives him the second worst result (only ABC/WashPost gives him worse)
First, there is no real way to measure "the will of the majority" except through votes cast and, to a lesser extent, through polls. The majority of votes were cast for Clinton, not Trump. That's a clear fact. The polls are also clear that Trump had lower approval ratings than past presidents, and his disapproval ratings were far higher than any other president when they came into office. This is also a fact.
We can, of course, argue with who Trump represents, because depending on who we are, his words and his actions are going to be interpreted differently. My interpretation is that he represents straight white men. More specifically, wealthy straight, white, men.
New York and California make up over 18% of the population. Those citizens are absolutely just as important as citizens of any other state when it comes to discussing the popular vote. While Trump might have won the popular vote in 30 states, that does nothing to diminish the fact that Clinton won the popular vote by close to 2.8 million votes.
While I'll admit that some of what I said can be considered opinion, the other parts of what I said are VERY clearly supported by fact.
The NY/CA popular vote gap argument makes no sense. If you ignore the votes of the 38 million people living in states which supported Trump the most, to balance the votes of the 38 million people living in California, you get the same result -- Trump loses the popular vote.
It's so ridiculous. Guess what, if you ignore 58.5 million people's worth of red states, then Clinton would have won the election!
It's not only ridiculous, it's rather offensive. It pretty directly implies that Californians and New Yorkers should somehow count less, and more indirectly implies that Democrats aren't worthy Americans the way that people in flyover country are.
You say Trump represents straight white males (you imply that's all he represents). Trump won the vote of 53% of white women.
Trump won the popular vote in 30 of the 50 states. The popular vote in just two states - NY & CA, neither of which Trump could have ever competed in - determined that popular vote gap.
The facts don't support your premise at all.