President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters are motivated by their prejudices, not economic concerns, social scientists contend. Will Democrats stop trying to win their votes?
In January, Smith and his University of Kansas colleague, associate sociology professor Eric A. Hanley, published a 47-page paper deconstructing the Republican president’s appeal. Building on decades of scholarship about the lure of authoritarianism and their own analysis of American voting psychology in 2012 and 2016, the social scientists make an argument that some may find offensive and others unsurprising.
It goes something like this: Trump’s biggest supporters are motivated by bigotry and want him to hurt the people they dislike.
Note: There’s a lot to unpack in this article, and this just seems to be the hook.
Thinking back to my boomer mother trying to explain why her racist friends and sister in law weren’t racist they were just experiencing “economic anxiety” 🙄 Like poor people or POC aren’t in the exact same or worse economic position??
“Centrist” pundits be like: “No, it’s the democrats, who went too far by language policing whites for calling blacks a historically accepted word blacks use in rap music, and other double standards, especially within law enforcement, favoring blacks over other races.”
No! What? I’m shocked! Shocked! You hear me? Shocked!
HOLY FUCK! PEOPLE WHO VOTE FOR ETHNIC CLEANSING ARE RACIST!
lololololololololololol
Yes.
Research done.
Not necessarily, some of them could be not racist but too dumb to see the conflict.
If you read/hear anything people in Trump’s orbit are pushing as policy and ignore the vehemently racist overtones, that doesn’t make you any LESS racist for supporting obvious racists. That’s like the trope of people saying “Well, I’m not racist, BUT…”
Same difference.
Not saying there aren’t a lot of racists, but there are also many very dumb people. I’ve met enough of the general population to feel fairly certain that there are a non-zero number of Trump supporters who are otherwise tolerant people. They simply don’t think about it.
You’d be surprised by the proportion of the population which spends virtually no time on self-reflection. They just kinda bumble forward through life. Most of these people inherit their political affiliation like a sports team, from their environment. They’re not bad people, they just don’t think too hard.
They’re not bad people, they just don’t think too hard.
I propose that they’re bad people because they don’t think too hard.
I agree with this. You don’t have to be consciously malicious for the fact that you refuse to think critically to make you a bad person. This planet and species doesn’t have time to forgive that shit anymore.
To refine my previous claim, those who “don’t think too hard” can’t act like it’s a virtue or claim immunity from ridicule.
However, I don’t want to cross into the territory of punishing people of “thought-crime”, or more accurately in this case, “no-thought-crime”. I think it’s important to not legislate punitively against “not thinking too hard” to remain consistent with the principles of a free and open society.
Not everyone thinks good.
Not everyone thinks
goodwell.Yes, that was intentional to further color the sentiment.
The “not thinking about it” is what makes them racists.
Eh, I try to use Hanlon’s Razor whenever prudent.
Holy fuck, an exception to Betteridge’s Law
Hmmm, I wonder if the political base that waves Confederate and nazi flags, serves a fascist dictatorship, and works alongside fascists globally might be racist? What a real head scratcher that is, who knows really
/s
Sigh… They’re not racist they’re just “economically anxious”.
Does the Pope shit in the woods?
Is the bear Catholic?
I hear the new pope likes camping, so likely, yes.
The entire problem is very specifically that they lie about the economy in lockstep, and the media reports it and then idiot centrists are like “oh yeah I guess the economy is bad? People keep talking about it so it must be true.”
I’m sure many don’t think they’re racist but most if not all probably buy into the line that we all have an equal playing field in life and any statement to the contrary is just victimhood.
The ones I talk to, now, openly admit that Muslims are “scary”, gays are “disgusting”, and women are “lesser”.
What scares me more isnt the men who think women are lesser. What scares me are the women who think women are lesser, and want men who think that too
Women who are like that usually change their mind after a couple of years buckled into the yoke. There’s currently a whole group of women stuck in golden handcuffs in the trad wife influencer community who are miserable in their relationships but making too much ad money to consider stopping.
The same bunch usually think going to university somehow “taints” someone.
Of course they either overlook or don’t know that plenty of the people they vote for went to college, too.
Talking to my aunt Linda, eh?
Nobody wakes up in the morning, gets out bed, and enters the world with the intent to be an asshole. Yet there are a ton of assholes in the world.
Everyone does shitty things from time to time. The difference between an asshole and a good person is that the good person realizes when they’ve been shitty and tries to learn something from the experience.
Honestly, my experience is entirely anecdotal, and I completely admit that. I have not read this article yet, so I don’t even know what the conclusion is (but I can make an assumption).
Disclaimer being what it is, literally all of the full-on racist people I know or have known are also MAGA conservatives. And conversely, all the MAGA people I know or have known are way more racist than average. I say that from the perspective that, at least in the USA, most people have racial biases to a certain extent.
I’ve been told things like “You don’t have the right skin color to take the bus into the city”, meaning because I’m Caucasian with “white” skin, I would somehow be an outlier among the rest of the folks taking the bus. Many, many times I’ve heard statements like “we can’t even say [the N-word] anymore even though that’s what they call themselves all the time” and let me tell you the people saying that don’t say “N-word” they say the real deal that rhymes with chigger. They’ll claim illegal “Mexicans” took their jobs, without a moment’s thought about who hired those “Mexicans” or what nationality those “Mexicans” are. There’s really no skin color other than white-white that doesn’t receive some hate.
Anyway, this is just old man ranting at this point, and it may even be too long to be readable, so let me summarize it with FUCK RACISTS & FUCK MAGA.
The average immigrant from Guatemala has had about 2-4 years of school in their entire life. They don’t speak English and will never be fluent. There a decent chance they’re not even literate in Spanish.
Now imagine who you have to be for that person to be a threat to your job.
Sigh I’ve heard my parents and their neighbors complain about “all the Jews” buying houses to rent to “all the Mexicans” who now live in their neighborhood. (Hint: there is no way that 100% of the “Mexicans” they refer to are actually Mexican. But being so nuanced isn’t a skill racists tend to have.)
I hate houses being bought up by big landlords, too, and I know that being constantly bugged by realtors (who just want to turn around and rent those houses out anyway) is something that bothers those particular home owners. I would be great if we could talk about those problems for what they are, without bringing in people’s religion, culture, or national origin. The only war is a class war, and although even these people agree that a class war of some type exists, it seems that some people love to hate so much that it just gets added to a pile of things to hate.
It’s almost like they’re the opposite of polyamorous, some kind of poly-misery, where they can’t hate just one group. Ugh.
I am the son of MAGA parents. They were never overtly racist. They were always kind to my non-white friends and their non-white neighbors, always thinking that they were “one of the good ones”. But since Trump has validated their latent racism, it has become more ugly. I think that’s more insidious and dangerous than empowering the lunatic fringe, honestly.
Trump made a lot of people who thought it was a societal norm to be kind and hide their biases feel like it was okay, and that felt freeing to them. It’s also why many of them bray about freedom
When these types talk about “freedom” or “liberty”, they usually mean the Southern definition.
“Things have gotten so bad over the last 4 years” is just a dog whistle for “theres too many brown people on my tv and no one says f*** are weird anymore”
So at least theyre still somewhat restrained
Me, a social scientist as well: Bubbler noises
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: YEEEEESSSSSSSSSS.
Their findings will be published in the “Journal Of No Shit Sherlock.”
Along with the shocking findings that all his bills funnel money from the poor to the rich.
