Trump supporters: what do you think about the education gap?

[‼realJohnEwards‼]

Self-explanatory: why do you think that the education gap in white voting habits has widened so much this year?

[JA]

Because colleges indoctrinate people with leftwing communist propaganda to destroy the fabric of patriotic, Christian American culture.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Because you'd have to be a f-cking idiot to support Donald Trump.

[JA]

Because you'd have to be a f-cking idiot to support Donald Trump.

See? This is what colleges do - they brainwash. The leftwing professors that control colleges don't want to #MAGA.

[RFayette]

[mencken]

Intuitively, I would think the non-college educated are more likely to be adversely affected by the current economy, and consequently more receptive to the candidacy of a man who speaks of American decline and proposes simplistic measures to combat this. They will be less attracted to the candidacy of a woman who trivializes their concerns with platitudes such as "America is already great" or "stronger together," or calls them "deplorable"

[GeorgiaModerate]

Intuitively, I would think the non-college educated are more likely to be adversely affected by the current economy, and consequently more receptive to the candidacy of a man who speaks of American decline and proposes simplistic measures to combat this. They will be less attracted to the candidacy of a woman who trivializes their concerns with platitudes such as "America is already great" or "stronger together," or calls them "deplorable"

Thank you for posting a thoughtful and reasoned response, in contrast to the knee-jerk answers (from both sides) earlier in this thread.

[Nyvin]

Those with a college degree are more able and willing to accept and embrace the future than those without.

[Maxwell]

Intuitively, I would think the non-college educated are more likely to be adversely affected by the current economy, and consequently more receptive to the candidacy of a man who speaks of American decline and proposes simplistic measures to combat this. They will be less attracted to the candidacy of a woman who trivializes their concerns with platitudes such as "America is already great" or "stronger together," or calls them "deplorable"

yep.

[Bismarck]

I would add identity politics to what other posters have already said. If you're an upper middle class suburban voter and the media tells you everyday that Trump supporters are dumb redneck racists, you're gonna shy away from that.

[Southern Delegate matthew27]

The liberterian ideas supported by the republican party would have us become a very backwards country...No clean air, water or food. A educated person simply feels that some government is acceptable while the non-educated white male wants back into the 18th century.

[Rand]

I would add identity politics to what other posters have already said. If you're an upper middle class suburban voter and the media tells you everyday that Trump supporters are dumb redneck racists, you're gonna shy away from that.

I don't need the media to tell me that. I'm drowning in a sea of these ignorant, redneck Trump sheep.

[RINO Tom]

The answer is obvious.

The less obvious answer is why Democrats think educated Whites rejecting Trump means any future loyalty to the Democratic Party.

[Bismarck]

The liberterian ideas supported by the republican party would have us become a very backwards country...No clean air, water or food. A educated person simply feels that some government is acceptable while the non-educated white male wants back into the 18th century.

You do know educated whites were overwhelmingly republican until this year right? Mitt Romney won among voters with a bachelors degree in 2012.

[JA]

Intuitively, I would think the non-college educated are more likely to be adversely affected by the current economy, and consequently more receptive to the candidacy of a man who speaks of American decline and proposes simplistic measures to combat this. They will be less attracted to the candidacy of a woman who trivializes their concerns with platitudes such as "America is already great" or "stronger together," or calls them "deplorable"

Except that Trump's supporters during the GOP primary were no poorer than Cruz supporters with a median income of $72,000. I'm not sure about you, but that's not poor to me. They were also considerably less likely to work in an industry at risk from the negative effects of globalization than other voters. The sole distinguishing characteristic of Trump's base is racial resentment. His best group are middle class white men; not this glorified blue collar working man just trying to get by in a world leaving him behind, nor simply backwoods rednecks. Undeniably those without a college degree are more likely to feel the pressures of an increasingly globalized and automated economy, but they were not the ones breaking monolithically for Trump. The widening education gap during the general election race is attributable to the departure of college educated Republican-leaning Independents away from Trump's bigotry, history of sexual abuse, and poor temperament. These non-college educated voters clinging to Trump would've clung to Rubio or Bush as well, simply because they have an R next to their name because Republicans have consistently had more uneducated white voters than Democrats. So stop this nonsense about the noble laborer destroyed by the globalized economy which has pushed them into the arms of Trump, because it's all lies.

[Santander]

Trump loves the poorly educated. It's about time we all started to.

[JA]

Trump loves the poorly educated. It's about time we all started to.

Why should we?

[Fuzzy Bear]

Intuitively, I would think the non-college educated are more likely to be adversely affected by the current economy, and consequently more receptive to the candidacy of a man who speaks of American decline and proposes simplistic measures to combat this. They will be less attracted to the candidacy of a woman who trivializes their concerns with platitudes such as "America is already great" or "stronger together," or calls them "deplorable"

Thank you for posting a thoughtful and reasoned response, in contrast to the knee-jerk answers (from both sides) earlier in this thread.

This is very much the case.

[mencken]

Intuitively, I would think the non-college educated are more likely to be adversely affected by the current economy, and consequently more receptive to the candidacy of a man who speaks of American decline and proposes simplistic measures to combat this. They will be less attracted to the candidacy of a woman who trivializes their concerns with platitudes such as "America is already great" or "stronger together," or calls them "deplorable"

Except that Trump's supporters during the GOP primary were no poorer than Cruz supporters with a median income of $72,000. I'm not sure about you, but that's not poor to me. They were also considerably less likely to work in an industry at risk from the negative effects of globalization than other voters. The sole distinguishing characteristic of Trump's base is racial resentment. His best group are middle class white men; not this glorified blue collar working man just trying to get by in a world leaving him behind, nor simply backwoods rednecks. Undeniably those without a college degree are more likely to feel the pressures of an increasingly globalized and automated economy, but they were not the ones breaking monolithically for Trump. The widening education gap during the general election race is attributable to the departure of college educated Republican-leaning Independents away from Trump's bigotry, history of sexual abuse, and poor temperament. These non-college educated voters clinging to Trump would've clung to Rubio or Bush as well, simply because they have an R next to their name because Republicans have consistently had more uneducated white voters than Democrats. So stop this nonsense about the noble laborer destroyed by the globalized economy which has pushed them into the arms of Trump, because it's all lies.

Looking at the source of your figures, one can see that both Trump and Cruz (who was riding on Trump's coattails until circumstances forced them into a "cage match") had significantly lower median incomes than Kasich (emissary of the crony capitalist GOP establishment). True, all three had higher median incomes than Clinton and Sanders supporters, but the demographics that Clinton and Sanders explicitly pandered to (racial minorities and millennials, respectively) tend to skew this statistic.

And while we are on the subject of median household income, why are few willing to discuss why it has remained flat for the last 18 years during this supposed recovery? Is not one who makes median income by definition middle-class? Is there some reason that the economic stagnation of middle-class white people is a more trivial concern than artificially inflated stock prices or the "plight" of the professional underclass?

[Fuzzy Bear]

Intuitively, I would think the non-college educated are more likely to be adversely affected by the current economy, and consequently more receptive to the candidacy of a man who speaks of American decline and proposes simplistic measures to combat this. They will be less attracted to the candidacy of a woman who trivializes their concerns with platitudes such as "America is already great" or "stronger together," or calls them "deplorable"

Except that Trump's supporters during the GOP primary were no poorer than Cruz supporters with a median income of $72,000. I'm not sure about you, but that's not poor to me. They were also considerably less likely to work in an industry at risk from the negative effects of globalization than other voters. The sole distinguishing characteristic of Trump's base is racial resentment. His best group are middle class white men; not this glorified blue collar working man just trying to get by in a world leaving him behind, nor simply backwoods rednecks. Undeniably those without a college degree are more likely to feel the pressures of an increasingly globalized and automated economy, but they were not the ones breaking monolithically for Trump. The widening education gap during the general election race is attributable to the departure of college educated Republican-leaning Independents away from Trump's bigotry, history of sexual abuse, and poor temperament. These non-college educated voters clinging to Trump would've clung to Rubio or Bush as well, simply because they have an R next to their name because Republicans have consistently had more uneducated white voters than Democrats. So stop this nonsense about the noble laborer destroyed by the globalized economy which has pushed them into the arms of Trump, because it's all lies.

Looking at the source of your figures, one can see that both Trump and Cruz (who was riding on Trump's coattails until circumstances forced them into a "cage match") had significantly lower median incomes than Kasich (emissary of the crony capitalist GOP establishment). True, all three had higher median incomes than Clinton and Sanders supporters, but the demographics that Clinton and Sanders explicitly pandered to (racial minorities and millennials, respectively) tend to skew this statistic.

And while we are on the subject of median household income, why are few willing to discuss why it has remained flat for the last 18 years during this supposed recovery? Is not one who makes median income by definition middle-class? Is there some reason that the economic stagnation of middle-class white people is a more trivial concern than artificially inflated stock prices or the "plight" of the professional underclass?

Ah, the deafening silence.

The economic stagnation of blacks and Hispanics is more important to Democrats because they will provide them with votes.  That's also the reason that these same folks that rag on the "poorly educated" Trump supporters who are predominantly white never mention the education level of their own black and Hispanic base and would consider it racist if their opposition did.

[PresidentSamTilden]

And while we are on the subject of median household income, why are few willing to discuss why it has remained flat for the last 18 years during this supposed recovery? Is not one who makes median income by definition middle-class? Is there some reason that the economic stagnation of middle-class white people is a more trivial concern than artificially inflated stock prices or the "plight" of the professional underclass?

There are a lot of people discussing it. Trump, obviously, is one person, Bernie Sanders was another. But serious economic discussion isn't always covered adequately when you are trying to "explicitly pander" to different groups, as politicians do.  

A couple books I've read recently that touch on it include Robert Gordon's "The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War" and another that touched on it was "2052: A Global Forecast for the next 40 years" by Jorgen Randers. If you're interested in the topic I would definitely recommend checking these out. Not that you seem like the person who would fall for Trump's nonsense about this topic, but it's clearly a lot more complicated than any politician can admit.

One thing that is always left out of this discussion, in my view, is that the US wealth vs the rest of the world post WW2 was so laughably unequal that it could never be sustained in the long term.

[JA]

Intuitively, I would think the non-college educated are more likely to be adversely affected by the current economy, and consequently more receptive to the candidacy of a man who speaks of American decline and proposes simplistic measures to combat this. They will be less attracted to the candidacy of a woman who trivializes their concerns with platitudes such as "America is already great" or "stronger together," or calls them "deplorable"

Except that Trump's supporters during the GOP primary were no poorer than Cruz supporters with a median income of $72,000. I'm not sure about you, but that's not poor to me. They were also considerably less likely to work in an industry at risk from the negative effects of globalization than other voters. The sole distinguishing characteristic of Trump's base is racial resentment. His best group are middle class white men; not this glorified blue collar working man just trying to get by in a world leaving him behind, nor simply backwoods rednecks. Undeniably those without a college degree are more likely to feel the pressures of an increasingly globalized and automated economy, but they were not the ones breaking monolithically for Trump. The widening education gap during the general election race is attributable to the departure of college educated Republican-leaning Independents away from Trump's bigotry, history of sexual abuse, and poor temperament. These non-college educated voters clinging to Trump would've clung to Rubio or Bush as well, simply because they have an R next to their name because Republicans have consistently had more uneducated white voters than Democrats. So stop this nonsense about the noble laborer destroyed by the globalized economy which has pushed them into the arms of Trump, because it's all lies.

Looking at the source of your figures, one can see that both Trump and Cruz (who was riding on Trump's coattails until circumstances forced them into a "cage match") had significantly lower median incomes than Kasich (emissary of the crony capitalist GOP establishment). True, all three had higher median incomes than Clinton and Sanders supporters, but the demographics that Clinton and Sanders explicitly pandered to (racial minorities and millennials, respectively) tend to skew this statistic.

And while we are on the subject of median household income, why are few willing to discuss why it has remained flat for the last 18 years during this supposed recovery? Is not one who makes median income by definition middle-class? Is there some reason that the economic stagnation of middle-class white people is a more trivial concern than artificially inflated stock prices or the "plight" of the professional underclass?

I'm pretty sure the stagnant economic growth of middle and lower class incomes was a cornerstone of the Sanders campaign, wherein he described the overwhelming majority of all growth going to the very top.  This has been an ongoing problem since at least the late 1960s, not merely the past 18 years. We can bicker about the cause being income tax cuts, globalization, automation, etc... But, personally, I concur with Sanders that it was largely attributable to favorable policies for the top, along with automation. However, if you look at the graph you provided, you'll notice that the stagnation largely comes from the middle class being particularly negatively affected by the Dot Com Bubble and the Great recession. Incomes were unable to even fully recover from the early 2000s recession before this one hit. We are starting to see some notable improvements, but this can be easily wiped out by yet another recession, which cannot be ruled out in the near future. That's why we need policies that will actually help elevate American workers (of all races and ethnicities), young professionals, and protect them from the harsh fluctuations of the market, so if we have another recession all our gains aren't obliterated by the actions of a few Wall Street.

[‼realJohnEwards‼]

Intuitively, I would think the non-college educated are more likely to be adversely affected by the current economy, and consequently more receptive to the candidacy of a man who speaks of American decline and proposes simplistic measures to combat this. They will be less attracted to the candidacy of a woman who trivializes their concerns with platitudes such as "America is already great" or "stronger together," or calls them "deplorable"

Except that Trump's supporters during the GOP primary were no poorer than Cruz supporters with a median income of $72,000. I'm not sure about you, but that's not poor to me. They were also considerably less likely to work in an industry at risk from the negative effects of globalization than other voters. The sole distinguishing characteristic of Trump's base is racial resentment. His best group are middle class white men; not this glorified blue collar working man just trying to get by in a world leaving him behind, nor simply backwoods rednecks. Undeniably those without a college degree are more likely to feel the pressures of an increasingly globalized and automated economy, but they were not the ones breaking monolithically for Trump. The widening education gap during the general election race is attributable to the departure of college educated Republican-leaning Independents away from Trump's bigotry, history of sexual abuse, and poor temperament. These non-college educated voters clinging to Trump would've clung to Rubio or Bush as well, simply because they have an R next to their name because Republicans have consistently had more uneducated white voters than Democrats. So stop this nonsense about the noble laborer destroyed by the globalized economy which has pushed them into the arms of Trump, because it's all lies.

Looking at the source of your figures, one can see that both Trump and Cruz (who was riding on Trump's coattails until circumstances forced them into a "cage match") had significantly lower median incomes than Kasich (emissary of the crony capitalist GOP establishment). True, all three had higher median incomes than Clinton and Sanders supporters, but the demographics that Clinton and Sanders explicitly pandered to (racial minorities and millennials, respectively) tend to skew this statistic.

And while we are on the subject of median household income, why are few willing to discuss why it has remained flat for the last 18 years during this supposed recovery? Is not one who makes median income by definition middle-class? Is there some reason that the economic stagnation of middle-class white people is a more trivial concern than artificially inflated stock prices or the "plight" of the professional underclass?

Ummm, I'm not sure what figures you're looking at but since 2012 median income is up $4000. There is still a long way to go but you are acting as if there has been no progress whatsoever, which is just not true. And FYI, the economic boom of the 90's was ultimately what led to the dot-com burst and, eventually, the housing crisis, so don't act like things were all peachy back then.

[HAnnA MArin County]

Trump loves manipulates the poorly educated. It's about time we all started to.

FIFY.

This is why Republicans/Trump supporters are so intolerable: they not only lack book smarts, but they also lack common sense. Why should we love dumb people who are too stupid to know anything about how our government works? In Trumptopia, being educated must mean that you're a part of the rigging conspiracy. The only way we need to love these people is by educating them. Oh wait, they think education is how the big bad liberal media elites indoctrinate you into believing their leftist liberal lies. Just trying to think like a Trump supporter makes me feel as though I lose an IQ point every time.

This college-educated white millennial male cannot wait to see these people grovel in two weeks. 

[JA]

This college-educated white millennial male cannot wait to see these people grovel in two weeks.