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In reply to the discussion: John Dean article explains Trump voters. REALLY! [View all]markpkessinger
(8,412 posts)This explains Trump's core supporters very well. What it does not explain -- and what, from a political standpoint, is far more urgently in need of explanation -- is that small, but significant, slice of voters who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but went for Trump in 2016, as well as the similarly small group of Sanders supporters who voted for Trump. (I was and am a very strong supporter of Bernie Sanders, but for the life of me I cannot wrap my head around a Sanders supporter who would throw his support behind Trump.)
What's more, I personally know a number of Trump voters who simply don't fit the nice, neat little package that John Dean presents. During the campaign, I had conversations with a number of Trump voters whom I know well. In those conversations, most of them would acknowledge that Trump says and tweets a lot of crazy stuff, but they dismissed that as mere campaign rhetoric intended to garner media attention. They had convinced themselves -- based on what I'm not exactly sure -- that, if elected, the demands of the office would surely cause a more sober, measured Trump. Said one of them, "I'm convinced most of the crazy stuff he says is just for effect; I mean, he couldn't possibly be that crazy and have been the successful businessman that he is." (a statement that also told me the person who was speaking it was ignorant of the exact nature of Trump's business 'success').
Look, Trump has his true believers, to be sure, and nothing is going to persuade these folks. So why expend energy trying to understand them? Better to focus on understanding those of Trump's voters who can potentially be moved rather than on those who cannot. To be sure, moving even these voters is apt to be quite difficult, not because they are unable to be moved, but because it will be difficult to get them to be willing to admit to themselves, let alone anybody else, that they got it so horribly wrong in 2016.
Honestly, I think tribalism explains Trump's victory better than authoritarianism does (not to say that Trump and his hardcore supporters aren't authoritarians). But regarding the tribalism explanation, I'd really love for someone to figure out how it is that so many working- and middle-class Americans imagine themselves to be part of the same 'tribe' as a billionaire who himself was born into great wealth.