Is Trump’s base racist? Social scientists begin to weigh in
Is Trump’s base racist? Social scientists begin to weigh in
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.
Yes.
Research done.
Holy fuck, an exception to Betteridge's Law
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Does the Pope shit in the woods?
I hear the new pope likes camping, so likely, yes.
Is the bear Catholic?
Begin?
"Journalist remembers social sciences exist and start listening 10+ years late to see if it snags some web traffic" Trust me, social science and history have been on red alert this whole time.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: YEEEEESSSSSSSSSS.
So... MAGA = Cucks? Once again, every accusation is a confession.
They're not all racists but all racists are maga
Well, not the one who hate white people.
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.
Oh come on they can't be racist! There's people of color in that base! What are they, racist against themselves? Please, that makes no sense. That's like if there were Jews that supported the Nazis! Or black folk that fought for the Confederacy!
/s if that's not obvious
I mean, obviously the answer is yes. But that is a great hook into what's next.
This article also does a good job of making an argument for the Democrats to tack left and have a strong contrasting message to the Republicans. Even the squishiest, least offensive MAGA is still pretty far right and closer to Trump than to any Democrat. They don't even regret their votes in any appreciable way. The most regret is coming from people who stayed home or voted third party. Give them a real contrast so even the most intellectually dishonest grifter can't say "both sides" anymore.
If the Democrats had a real message and some fight in them, they could be an opposition party. Instead, most just want to write strongly worded letters without doing the hard work. And with that, they might actually win elections. Too bad they're only starting to figure this out now when it's probably too late.
HOLY FUCK! PEOPLE WHO VOTE FOR ETHNIC CLEANSING ARE RACIST!
You need academics, research scientists and a bunch of professionals to figure this out?
This like asking firefighters to produce a research paper to determine if there is a fire for the towering burning 50 story inferno that's lighting up the skyline.
To be fair, you can't always take things as "obvious" in science without so much as an attempt to investigate, because every so often an idea that seems obvious or common sense turns out to be wrong, or has some unexpected detail to it.
"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."
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."
How many racists do you know that didn’t vote for Trump?
Same reason bigotry isn't an impedance to a gay or woman President that I see so many people try to claim. Bigots aren't voting Democrat no matter who it is. Good thing you don't need those deplorables to win.
Suck it, Betteridge !
Wasn't this settled way back when?
Anyway, I seem to remember that digging deeper on donvict's base after Hillary's deplorables "gaffe" (not a fucking "gaffe" to tell the goddamn truth about awful people) found that she was basically correct - a portion of them are racists, xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists...
Me, a social scientist as well: Bubbler noises
Sigh... They're not racist they're just "economically anxious".
They should never have been trying to court his "most ardent" supporters to begin with. It's the swing voters and non voters they need. (And the centrist agenda isn't the way to do it.)
Is a frog’s ass watertight?
Most asses are
Unequivocally yes. Next question.
It's not always necessary to believe in white supremacy to support white supremacist policy. It would be sufficient to just be a psychopath who is white.
If you have no empathy, no capacity for compassion, give zero shits about justice or the greater good of society, and you believe that putting racists in power will help people of your own race, that's what you're going to do. Because it might help you, personally, to get ahead.
I think there are more of these people in the Republican party than there are those who actually think the white race is superior and deserves to rule.
It goes something like this: Trump’s biggest supporters are motivated by bigotry and want him to hurt the people they dislike.
Hence his supporter whining that he's not hurting the people he "needs" to be hurting. I'm sure many of us personally know people just like this and most definitely do get a chubby when they think about someone like donvict actively harming certain segments of society.
Yeah, that’s about as surprising as sand at the beach.
Around here its hard to find a sandy beach... I'd say as surprising as water in the ocean
Took them long to find out the obvious answer. Nice they finally did.
The Trump supporters I know definitely are
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??
…yes
No! What? I'm shocked! Shocked! You hear me? Shocked!
lololololololololololol
"are we the baddies?"