Liberal Professor perfectly describes why white voters love Trump

[LabourJersey]

Am I the only one who doesn't understand the point about food? Why does that point even matter in this situation--is it all about the stupid avocado toast controversy or something else?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Am I the only one who doesn't understand the point about food? Why does that point even matter in this situation--is it all about the stupid avocado toast controversy or something else?

Yeah, I have no idea how that's relevant. I'm also not sure I know anybody, of any class, who sees food primarily as a means of "signaling sophistication".

I also don't think the point about settled versus unsettled families is elaborated enough, particularly with regards to how the relative numbers of those families have changed over time (which, to be clear, I think is at least partially attributable to bourgeois aspirational standards trickling down to the working class without bourgeois living standards following suit).

[JohnCA246]

Food often plays out in the broader culture war battles. Rather than think of personal tastes, people really like to analyze why people eat the things they do. I don't know if this alters anyone's vote, but it is out there, and might re-enforce people's negative "understandings" of one another.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I’d also suggest that the poor having an admiring or reverential attitude towards the super-rich and powerful while harboring (often deserved) contempt for the more immediately encountered parts of the perceived power élite is a familiar enough pattern throughout history that it really shouldn’t be surprising any more. See the way Ivan the Terrible was perceived by later generations of Russian peasants, et cetera.

[Antonio the Sixth]

There are a few good points buried in there, but the format evokes a kitchen-sink listing of stereotypes and platitudes more than a serious research hypothesis.

[LabourJersey]

I’d also suggest that the poor having an admiring or reverential attitude towards the super-rich and powerful while harboring (often deserved) contempt for the more immediately encountered parts of the perceived power élite is a familiar enough pattern throughout history that it really shouldn’t be surprising any more. See the way Ivan the Terrible was perceived by later generations of Russian peasants, et cetera.

Exactly-- just look at liberal/leftist people who fawn over the British Royal Family

[Santander]

I’d also suggest that the poor having an admiring or reverential attitude towards the super-rich and powerful while harboring (often deserved) contempt for the more immediately encountered parts of the perceived power élite is a familiar enough pattern throughout history that it really shouldn’t be surprising any more. See the way Ivan the Terrible was perceived by later generations of Russian peasants, et cetera.

Exactly-- just look at liberal/leftist people who fawn over the British Royal Family

lol... you can't exactly compare royalty with the bourgeoisie.

[hopper]

"working class" makes it sound more dignified. Notice you never hear about the "black working class" or the "Hispanic working class".

The 8% of black voters and 29% of Hispanic voters that went for Trump were not working class. They were basically all professional upper class workers and they could best be classified sociologically as alt-white.

Income does not play a factor in the way Black People vote. Its mostly goes the more black people that live in a  single county the more Dem the County is. Yes the Hispanic Vote has a lot to do with income in that the more money a Hispanic Household makes the more Republican thy vote. 

[BlueSwan]

I largely agree with Joan Williams.

Since the primaries I have argued that Donald Trump is a rich-kid with all the mannerisms of an uneducated working class guy. He talks like the guy down the bar. He's not polite. He never uses fancy words. He eats fast food. He doesn't care about exercising.

To many people he just appears to be "just like me, except really really rich". He's the guy they dream of becoming. Add to that his macho alpha male persona and you have got the kind of guy that WC males dream to become and WC women dream to partner up with. AND the kind of guy that the professional class despises and can't understand why anybody would ever trust with anything. The Access Hollywood tape would have destroyed almost any political candidate, but it didn't hurt Trump longterm because it reinforced the general idea of who he was, even if that behaviour in itself wasn't appealing.

I believe the only thing that will really hurt Trump with these voters is if it becomes apparent that he has been playing them. That he actually doesn't care about them and has been duping them all along. No amount of sex scandals, calling people names, pissing off foreign leaders or whatever will hurt him with these voters.

[Hindsight was 2020]

I'm got to honest I'm getting sick of the endless Trump voter articles. These people aren't the majority why not write more on the Gary Johnson and Jill Stein voters who are just of big of an ex factor that Trump won?

[BlueSwan]

I'm got to honest I'm getting sick of the endless Trump voter articles. These people aren't the majority why not write more on the Gary Johnson and Jill Stein voters who are just of big of an ex factor that Trump won?

They are interesting because working class voters used to vote for democrats in the US and socialdemocratic parties in Europe. Now they don't. Now they flock to folksy right wing populists and leave behind professiorial liberals. They are a large group of potential swing voters who can decide the outcome of elections.

[Bismarck]

I grew up in an area that was pretty mixed between upper middle class professional types and blue collar middle class types and resentment of "professionals" is not something I have really encountered nor have I ever heard someone not on the internet describe "professionals" as a distinct class. Although I come from a small exurbanish town so maybe it's different in other places where the divide is stronger and the majority of all people regardless of income aren't GOP.

[pbrower2a]

There are really-poor working white people -- people who work in convenience stores in rural areas, people with jobs that an educated person can imagine only as numbing boredom. They are often ill-educated, and they are on the economic brink.  They often resent anyone doing visibly better -- like people gas up at the convenience store/filling station, spending more in one transaction on motor fuels for the pick-up and the boat that it tows than that person makes in a day. It might be four such times in one day.

Their employers do nothing for them except to pay them and keep the power on. Obamacare? That could cost them money -- food off the table.  Condemned to fixed low incomes, they are more concerned with the cost of living than with opportunity. If you tell them that they might do better if they took some courses at the junior college, then they tell you that they work on rotating schedules that make such an effort possible.

Life for them is happiness for everyone except themselves in This World and real hardship for themselves.   

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I’d also suggest that the poor having an admiring or reverential attitude towards the super-rich and powerful while harboring (often deserved) contempt for the more immediately encountered parts of the perceived power élite is a familiar enough pattern throughout history that it really shouldn’t be surprising any more. See the way Ivan the Terrible was perceived by later generations of Russian peasants, et cetera.

At the risk of speaking too far outside of my area of knowledge, you could probably pick up strands of this going back centuries with the way kings often positioned themselves as protectors of the citizenry against nobles in the countryside.

[Badger]

I largely agree with Joan Williams.

Since the primaries I have argued that Donald Trump is a rich-kid with all the mannerisms of an uneducated working class guy. He talks like the guy down the bar. He's not polite. He never uses fancy words. He eats fast food. He doesn't care about exercising.

To many people he just appears to be "just like me, except really really rich". He's the guy they dream of becoming. Add to that his macho alpha male persona and you have got the kind of guy that WC males dream to become and WC women dream to partner up with. AND the kind of guy that the professional class despises and can't understand why anybody would ever trust with anything. The Access Hollywood tape would have destroyed almost any political candidate, but it didn't hurt Trump longterm because it reinforced the general idea of who he was, even if that behaviour in itself wasn't appealing.

I believe the only thing that will really hurt Trump with these voters is if it becomes apparent that he has been playing them. That he actually doesn't care about them and has been duping them all along. No amount of sex scandals, calling people names, pissing off foreign leaders or whatever will hurt him with these voters.

With respect Blue Swan comma I think any white working-class women who dream of hooking up with a dude like Trump are in the extreme minority. This is why Trump did so much worse among women across the board. Women without college degrees we're much more willing to support Trump for much of the reasons Pbower listed in his post, to wit, the lack of Economic Opportunity and Clinton's failure to address that issue, even if trumps so-called Solutions were pure demagoguery and myth

More frankly, that assessment of white working-class women is example number 3527 as to why Forum desperately needs more women posters.

[pbrower2a]

I largely agree with Joan Williams.

Since the primaries I have argued that Donald Trump is a rich-kid with all the mannerisms of an uneducated working class guy. He talks like the guy down the bar. He's not polite. He never uses fancy words. He eats fast food. He doesn't care about exercising.

To many people he just appears to be "just like me, except really really rich". He's the guy they dream of becoming. Add to that his macho alpha male persona and you have got the kind of guy that WC males dream to become and WC women dream to partner up with. AND the kind of guy that the professional class despises and can't understand why anybody would ever trust with anything. The Access Hollywood tape would have destroyed almost any political candidate, but it didn't hurt Trump longterm because it reinforced the general idea of who he was, even if that behaviour in itself wasn't appealing.

I believe the only thing that will really hurt Trump with these voters is if it becomes apparent that he has been playing them. That he actually doesn't care about them and has been duping them all along. No amount of sex scandals, calling people names, pissing off foreign leaders or whatever will hurt him with these voters.

With respect Blue Swan comma I think any white working-class women who dream of hooking up with a dude like Trump are in the extreme minority. This is why Trump did so much worse among women across the board. Women without college degrees we're much more willing to support Trump for much of the reasons Pbower listed in his post, to wit, the lack of Economic Opportunity and Clinton's failure to address that issue, even if trumps so-called Solutions were pure demagoguery and myth

More frankly, that assessment of white working-class women is example number 3527 as to why Forum desperately needs more women posters.

Access to a computer and coherent writing are hallmarks of the middle class. I'm guessing that if white working-class women (as opposed to well-educated people simply out of place in jobs below their level of skill or formal education) ever did try to join these Forums, then they would usually be exposed as out of their intellectual league for factual content, sentence structure, grammar, and spellings. A female liberal-arts grad working as a barista while awaiting a teaching position is in a different category of hopes than someone who expects to work as a convenience-store clerk indefinitely.   

[angus]

6. Different classes see food in radically different ways

I agree with some of the analysis, but this one is just silly.  Every animal sees food in the same way.

We may eat different things--I like really spicy food, and I probably consume far too much alcohol, coffee, and red meat--and we may have different methods of preparation, but we all share a primordial lust for food.

The author of the linked article says that some see food as a way to show off their sophistication while others see it is a way to be traditional.  This is over-analysis.  Both groups need food to survive and both groups use the dinner table as a venue for discussing things.  (Their discussions might be different, but that's really beside the point.)


Also, I agree with this post completely:

There are a few good points buried in there, but the format evokes a kitchen-sink listing of stereotypes and platitudes more than a serious research hypothesis.

it is rare that I agree with antonio's analysis, and noteworthy enough to justify the edit.