New Hampshire is now in the past and if we agree on nothing else, let’s settle this: Bernie Sanders’ people and Donald Trump’s people have nothing in common … nothing that is other than the realization that we’re all chumps in an epic con game.
Beyond that, in terms of what they really understand about The Big Con and what actually has to be done to pull the plug on it, we’re talking a gulf as vast as, oh I don’t know, the difference between an episode of “Duck Dynasty” and a “Frontline” documentary.
I’ve watched way too much punditry over the past week, yesterday and last night in particular. And amid the flood of exit-polling data and the sage analyses of anchor desks groaning with marvelously well-remunerated players of the DC-media establishment, I was amazed at how little discussion there was of a key statistic that keeps leaping out at me. Namely, the education level of Trump’s core supporters and how he dominates the field among people with a high school diploma or less.
Says ABC: “Voters who haven’t gone beyond high school were Trump’s best group by education; he won 45 percent of their votes. His support fell as education increased, to 21 percent among voters with a post-graduate education – still highly competitive even in that group.”
That single fact goes a long ways to explaining the much more frequently discussed 66% of Republicans who like The Donald’s idea of closing the borders to all Muslims, which is linked to other gob-smacking numbers like the 60% of Republicans who think Obama is a Muslim and not an actual citizen, not to mention Trumpists’ irrational level of fear of rampaging terrorists. For whatever the reason, the pundit class chooses not to make so much of that startling 45% number, much less dwell on it as they should.
No doubt they’re terrified at the thought of calling Trump’s people “stupid”. I mean what would The Donald say about that in his next live call-in interview … after his last call-in interview 15 minutes earlier? Moreover, The Donald’s people watch a lot of TV, and what TV performer dares call their viewers “stupid”.
The thing is there’s a more nuanced and interesting discussion to be had than just saying, “Trump’s voters are dolts”. To be sure they are unsophisticated and largely ignorant of critical facets of reality, but drooling morons? No. What they seem to me is a very large chunk of the American population that has never paid a lot of attention to why things are the way they are, much less who is responsible for making it that way, and — this is the part that Democrats are going to have understand and twist to their advantage if Trump makes it to November — this is a group of rare-to-never voters who mainly consume information that comes saturated with entertainment value. They need sugary frosting on everything.
I suspect these are the kids we all remember from high school, the ones who only perked up in class when something was funny, or easy. The stuff that was “boring”? Not so much. (I should know. That was me in Algebra.) Which of course goes a long ways to explaining their predicament in life today. Honest? Most likely. Hard-working? I don’t doubt it. Good neighbors? Yeah sure, friendly enough. But disciplined enough to exercise critical thinking in their own best interests? No way.
Everyone has noted that Trump’s people carry no white-hot ideological torches. All that standard Republican blather about religion and “Godliness” and “My Lord above”? It’s a big “whatever” to them. Having been “educated” primarily through pop culture, and by that I mean commercial radio and TV, they have developed an appetite, an addiction you might say, to the entertaining, politically incorrect ear candy spouted by celebrities and stars. People who are bona fide success stories, omnipresent larger than life characters who never fail to dominate their environment and enemies.
The fact that show biz acts like Rush Limbaugh and Trump “win” by a carefully calculated design that avoids genuine confrontation, isn’t something this audience notices particularly. The bigger point is that these guys talk like winners and live like winners. (They can buy all the cool stuff advertised on TV). Plus, they have mastered the art of using a vernacular this particular audience understands.
And this audience understand it because it is essentially the same language they use. And that’s because … to keep the perpetual wheel turning … they picked it up from pop culture.
So when Trump gets up in front of an auditorium of the faithful and calls Ted Cruz a “pussy”, the crowd howls with delight. Sheeeeeit! It’s like night out watching a stand-up comic at the nearest casino. And the guy’s a billionaire!
Weirdly, all this seems “authentic” to the Trump faithful. But I doubt the notion of authenticity is tied so much to Trump personally as it is that what he’s saying and the way he is saying it sounds so familiar to them. I mean, it’s their grievances and grudges blasting back at them … in their own words, from the mouth of a super rich, super-famous star. It’s a long-sought confirmation that while they’ve been dealt a shitty hand, they’ve been right all along.
In no way though does this describe the Sanders crowd. Yes, they too smell a grand, grotesque con. But they see, as the Trumpists don’t, the symbiotic connection between the conniving elite and the hapless chumps who routinely vote to keep them in power, sometimes by not voting at all.
Sanders’ authenticity on the other hand is, well, “authentic” and as much about him as a person as his message. In terms of critical thinking in pursuit of their best interests, Sanders’ people correctly assess The Bern as honorable. There is, as I’ve said before, a lot of misty-eyed idealism about what President Bernie could actually accomplish in a Quixotic fight against Wall St., UnitedHealth, Pfizer and on and on. But his appeal to his followers has nothing to do with pandering to chronically low levels of accurate information.
All that said, I repeat something from a few posts back. Roughly 48% of eligible voters never bother to show up on election day. That describes a big chunk of the crowd hooting and howling for Trump right now. If he gets 10% of them to vote in November we’ve got serious problems.
Great analysis. If you did the research, I bet you’d find a stronger correlation between his supporters and “enjoys Howard Stearn” (to the extent that anyone remembers him at this stage) than to most Trump-backed positions, such as “opposes the TPP.”
Remember Minnesota’s professional wrestler governor? The people you speak of turned out to vote him into office and probably haven’t voted since. If Trump gets the nomination, they might turn out again.
You sound like someone who knows someone who did such a thing.
I voted for Ventura, didnt tell my wife for months. She was pissed and never lets me forget it. Kind of a family joke now
i have two close friends who I keep in the same call.
Brian,
If you haven’t already read this you should find a copy of “Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America’s Class War” by Joe Bageant. It gives a lot of insight in support of your claim that people don’t vote in their own best interests.
Loved your article.
You’re right. I gotta read that.
For me the primary similarity between Trump and Sanders is that they are disrupters and most of their support comes based on a dislike/fear of the “other” as defined by their selected savior. Nothing really original about that as it has been the way of politics before there was officially politics. The degree to which you agree with either crazily quaffed old white dude is the degree to which you have bought in to their narrative of fear.
For Trumpites it is brown and/or foreign people who are here to kill us or take our jobs. To a lesser degree a corrupt “big government”, except the military and police for some reason.
For the Sandersnistas it is corporations that want to kill us and are shipping our jobs overseas to brown and/or foreign people. Also government corruption, except that it is the fault of corporations for some reason.
The item that most aligns the two groups however is their overwhelming fear of each other. If you wonder why so many eligible voters don’t vote and aren’t interested in voting all you ned to do is read most internet posts where either is a topic. The discourse isn’t something anybody but the most masochist would choose to step in to. The other option is a echo chamber of people who will never really challenge or teach you anything. The tenor of discourse online has finally bled in to and infected our national body politic (not that it was healthy before) and there is no reason to think there is a cure in the offing.
I’m not even inclined to disagree. while, as I’ve said, my emotional receptors are set to Sanders’ view, my sense of “the other” in his view also includes everyone with retirement accounts invested in enemies like UnitedHealth and Aetna. unwinding that massive system is a 20-25 year long proposition that first requires, A: An end to congressional gerrymandering, and B. Rolling back Citizens United. I’m emphatically in favor of both, but neither will happen in the next four years. But hell, I think “competent management” is something of a miracle given the depth of bullshit we swim in every day.
The two examples you call out, gerrymandering and Citizens United are interesting in how they reflect our understanding of the “other”.
In my view gerrymandering is an all-inclusive “other” in that it is the idea that those who hold government power get to stay in power despite either their qualifications or popular support. It isn’t especially more offensive to any on political ideology than an other. It is also an easy thing to be against in principle but somehow manages to survive no matter who is elected. The reason is of course that the selection process for those in power is biased toward those people who are talented in their ability to effect the electoral process. Gerrymandering is a side effect of democratically controlled power, not of a certain political ideology. The same effect happens through “constituent-mandering” where parties look to gain support of various sub-groups of the population by pandering to them and promising them benefits or special treatment. While not geographic in nature the effect is the same. If fact it is considered fundamental to democracy. Reducing geographic gerrymandering seems to be to be little more than a fig leaf of good governance covering a body which is built on the principle of democratic manipulation.
For me Citizens United is much the same game. It is more about manipulating the rules to effect the results to one side or the other and not really based on any sound philosophical/moral standing. If individuals can speak on politics so gan groups, regardless of the structure of those groups. While money isn’t speech (a false equivalency apropos of nothing) that doesn’t mean that it should be possible to limit speech through financial avenues.
Our system of government wasn’t set up for component management. It is set up to keep state powers from being used capriciously or in a way that favors one group over another while maintaining coordination on large scale national topics that are truly necessary for a state to exist. But to get elected it isn’t very effective to admit to that fact. Everybody needs to lie and say how their ideas can fix the unfixable. The reason “outsiders” are so attractive is that it provides a false hope that the system hasn’t failed, just the people administering it. An that idea would be comically naive if it weren’t so tragic.
I’m late to this post Brian. Great point about people liking what’s said more than who says it. Friend of mine who works with Trump’s much-loved poorly educated says the underclass never feels heard. Not that he’s speaking for them as much as it seems like he’s listening to them. He is only as long as it benefits him, of course. It’s like Huey Long saying “I’m a hick too.” And trump doesn’t have to pretend to be a hick in terms of real intellect. He may be cagey and savvy but his brain is pretty much all amygdala.