Understanding the Trump Coalition

[mia]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5952a3f1e4b0326c0a8d0bc9

Historians and political scientists will study Donald Trump’s 2016 Electoral College victory for years to come and I encourage you to read the works of established professionals. In the meantime, here’s armchair analysis from a Midwestern-bred stand-up comedian that enjoys talking politics with a wide variety of people.

In my view, the primary thing liberals need to understand is, Donald Trump represents a diverse coalition rather than the triumph of a coherent political ideology. When Donald Trump takes two or three different positions on an particular issue, he is often speaking to these different audiences. Here are some basic categories of Trump supporters that I’ve observed in my travels across the country and social media:

1. People that want to be part of something...

2. Conservatives that feel trapped by the two-party system...

3. People with very specific social grievances...

5. People that wish they had a lot of money...

6. People that believe what they hear (or at least want to)...

7. Bad, scary and dangerous people...

...Many liberal pundits created simplistic labels to explain the Trump phenomenon, but the reality is much more complicated. If the Democratic Party hopes to beat a celebrity who represents so many different things to different people, they need to tailor a message that speaks to most of them. Here’s a simple one:

Donald Trump is exploiting you for his own personal gain.

[tiredtoo]

1. not a good message.

Trump supporters will never believe it.
They are like cult members and the great leader can do no wrong. Forget his base, concentrate on getting the Dems out and gaining the support of independents.

[Cosmocat]

5. THIS - no reason to romanticize this bullshit

They voted for a POS elitist con man Russian puppet.

This was 1,000 percent obvious on November 7th.

It's not easy, but it's simple in form:

Dems need to get some guts to fight and come up with a consolidated message.

Get our people to vote and give the mushy middle something to vote for.

[n2doc]

2. 40 years of propaganda

That has to be stopped.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. This sums it up perfectly.

[Cosmocat]

7. Yes it does

nm

[Cosmocat]

6. In a nutshell, + 1,000,000,000,000

nm

[Dustlawyer]

9. The blatant propaganda along with our campaign finance system allow control

over the rest of us and our politicians. An evil plot worthy of a Bond villain.

[YCHDT]

12. Yeap, faux news et all

[BumRushDaShow]

3. "Many liberal pundits created simplistic labels to explain the Trump phenomenon"

No they didn't. They correctly pointed out the conglomeration of single-issue voters, many of whom were voting for the first time, and a good chunk not considering the potential consequences of this administration outside of their single-focus.

[oberliner]

8. Simplified: White people

He won the white vote by 20+ points.

[MrScorpio]

10. Bingo! nt

[hibbing]

13. That was missing from the list n/t

[Batship]

11. Well analyzed.

I do have a somewhat different take on it. It's true that they're a 'big tent,' just like we're a big tent. But I think that the quest for single, simple messages isn't the answer -- I think that's the problem, actually. I'm coming to believe that each of the 'big tent' issues has to be addressed with its own unique messaging.

For people who want to be part of something: "Look! Here's a thing that you truly CAN be part of!"

For trapped conservatives: "Here's a place that will value you BECAUSE of your different beliefs, not in spite of them!"

Etc, etc. And if the messages happen to find some overlap, that's great. There will always be a lot of people who stick with the Republican agenda just because their churches have painted them into that corner or because they just plain hate "liberals." But for the others, I think more specific, not less specific, is the way to go. More nuanced, not less nuanced. A lot of different balls in the air, all the time.

(If anybody's interested, Nate Silver did an analysis a few weeks ago about the various coalitions that make up the current Republican party. It was on 538. He came up with six main ones.)

[Buckeye_Democrat]

14. I'd prefer to look at data and surveys, and that indicates...

... Trump indeed had a broad coalition of voters.

Link: https://www.voterstudygroup.org/reports/2016-elections/the-five-types-trump-voters

To summarize it quickly, he won the GOP nomination because he was a favorite of the "deplorable" voters who are less educated and tend to watch FOX News whereas traditional conservatives had their votes spread across a large number of other candidates. The dumber voters gave him momentum that was never overcome.

When it was time to decide between that moron and Hillary Clinton, traditional Republicans voted for him despite any reservations. They are among the least likely to support ANY compromise with Democrats, far more so than the "deplorable" voters, so they mostly voted against her.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton struggled to overcome a bad reputation that's been promoted by right-wing media for years. There's many voters whose minds were closed thanks to that propaganda machine.

Intentional or not, Comey also helped deliver the death blow by supposedly "reopening" the private e-mail server investigation just days before the election. Exit polls showed that Trump won by a large margin among voters who made their decision "in October" (when Comey made that announcement) and in the "last week" to a lesser degree. As Nate Silver pointed out even before election day, there was a fairly high percentage of undecided voters in the final weeks before the election and, unfortunately, there was also a lack of polling in several states going into the final week. Polls of those states before Comey's announcement looked favorable for Clinton in the electoral college, but pollsters hadn't sufficiently updated them near the end.