Just posted the bulk of this in another thread, but I think it applies here also.

I live in a rural area dominated by unionized industry where Dems are the majority and tend to be either retired or working living the rural lifestyle. Think of the total opposite of urban. The nearest Starbucks is a 42 mile drive, the nearest Trader Joes, 120 Very few Repubs, and most Dems have a family legacy generations deep.

So why are Trumps signs as thick as flowers in the spring? It is hard to find a Hillary supporter will to say it publicly. So why is this?? Here is what i have concluded after lots of listening. Folks are afraid of the big three,

1. Fear of their jobs going to Mexico or China
2. Fear that their jobs are going away due to new regulations
3. Fear that their firearms will be taken away (almost everyone hunts here)

Remember this is an industrial area. We have watched our neighbors loose homes as companies outsourced overseas. We have seen factories close due to new regulations. These are real issues held by real people with a generational a Democratic legacy. The general view is Hillary does not have their backs when it comes to keeping them working.

Add to this the fact that hunting and shooting is also generational deep here. For example, the local high school closes for the first day of deer season and you can buy AR-15 ammunition in the local minimart. Hillary and gun rights are two things you never hear in a positive sentence around here.

So is it any wonder Trump is popular? If you look at my list, its essentially Trumps talking points. Is it any wonder that they are listening to him? When he flew into Everett WA about a month ago, i know many who made the almost 200 mile drive round trip to go see him......and these are Democrat union members!

If the party wants their votes, then address the issues they actually care about. Think we are an isolated instance? Read this article from the Atlantic,

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/why-democrats-in-western-pennsylvania-are-voting-trump/499577/

Do i think Hillary can turn it around with these folks before November? No way, not enough time.

But i disagree.
My wife come s from Monroeville Penn
I visit there frequently.. Talk to many
remaining Union guys.......Most of the Union leaders are pushing for Hillary!!!! Explaining that Republicans are the ones that drove the jobs over seas...Most of them are older and ready to retire, yep plenty of young ones..These guys just fucking can’t stand the hip hop generation, the hollywood Black reality shows and the Colin Kaepernicks of the world...

Just because the article was written in the Atlantic? Doesn’t mean the author has all the facts in line.

It just gets to me that the party just walks away.

What I see is also cultural. There is a fear among some in the older white male crowd ( and some older white women) that the world is changing. No longer will they be top dog.

Last edited Thu Sep 15, 2016, 11:28 PM - Edit history (1)

Is a very stark contest between the DC establishment and those hostile to it.

Team DC Establishment -- and that's us, folks -- is blessed with a brilliant, focused, experienced candidate who is the best that the establishment has to offer, and burdened with a candidate who is widely perceived (not always unfairly) to represent the worst aspects of DC entitlement, hubris, and cluelessness about non-coastal, non-elite America.

Team Anti-Establishment is blessed with a candidate who actually knows how to work the media (unlike their usual basket of deplorables) and cursed with a totally undisciplined candidate who embodies the worst, most repulsive excesses of their base and refuses to hide that fact.

If either party had nominated a less-galvanizing figure, that party would be walking away with this election. As it stands, this election is coming down not to two questions, but just to one: are you willing to put up with continued ruled by an insular elite establishment more than you're willing to burn the whole place to the ground? I like to think we prevail if that's the question, but as a lifelong Dem I'm appalled that that's the question.

I think you summed it up quite well.

I live in a pretty conservative part of Wisconsin, and from what I hear none of them necessarily like Trump, they just like the idea that he is not a typical politician.
People are ready for a change, and Trump seems to give it to them.
In the end, I think that Hillary will win, but for right now Trump is the exciting choice.

This election will depend on if Hillary excites enough of the democrats to come out. I just don't see that she rallies the people like Obama did. Obama was exciting, and he was new, and young. He brought the young students out (kind of like Bernie did), but will Hillary? I don't know, I think in the end she will. But if the democrats get complacent she will lose.

If anyone questions Trumps appeal, I say it is a celebrity appeal, not the man. If you doubt that, remember in the past Arnold Schwartzenegger, and Jessie Ventura have been elected, in pretty liberal states at that.

We live in an American Idol society, and I think the degeneration of our candidates proves that.

A lot of those bigots will hate BLM too, of course, and be birthers, but that's not driving it. Trump would still have won the Republican nomination if BLM had never existed, and birtherism is a state of mind, that they mostly know was about a lie but don't really care. His supporters are all about 'the wall' and deporting anyone with a darkish skin colour if they can find an excuse, and stopping any coming into the country again.

Plus there's misogyny. Many of them think a woman should never be president, because they think they are better than all women.

The majority of households are making less today than at the turn of the century,
courtesy of the GW engineered great recession.

That is why Hillary is (regretfully) disowning her previous support for the TPP, and why the clown Trump says he would "forbid" the Ford Motor Company to delocalize its small cars production to Mexico. Many people are hurting.

The money issue is very much one of the top 3 issues (includes the ACA)
Security is probably another: ISIS, islamism,.. (a San Bernardino bis and Trump would rise)
Ethic tension might be a distant third, but the Obama birther issue is now gone and forgotten

I mostly want the survival of the humanity by avoiding nuclear war, and I'm convinced that Trump doesn't have the temperament for that responsibility, but I don't think that's the main concern of most people when deciding between the two main candidates.

People have various reasons, well-thought or not, for supporting candidates as pointed out by other posters in this thread already.

If we're going to boil it down, I'll make it about one question, which is not on your list, and which I will not post here.

"End of Story" and "PERIOD" are pretty weak attempts to have the last word in a discussion that has many more layers than you've allowed. It's offensive.

That said, I certainly agree that race is a factor in this election. So is gender.

And so is corruption.