I think too many progressives formed an opinion of the typical 2016 Trump voter that was badly flawed, and I’ve been saying this from the nearly the day after the election. The problem is that high-information voters saw all the racist things that he said and all the violence against women he had committed, and they assumed that everyone else had both heard all those stories and that they credited them as indisputably true. As a result, the assumption was that Trump’s voters were all racist and misogynistic, or least intolerably accepting of those traits in a U.S. president.
A lot of progressives also persist in thinking that all these voters are irredeemable. None of them are capable of seeing the light and nothing can shake their support for Trump.
Here’s just one example of why these assumptions and not true:
At the Rusty Willow Boutique, an upscale women’s clothing shop [in Culpeper, Virginia] that was preparing for its grand opening, just the mention of Mr. Trump prompted a squabble between Sonya Pancione, 57, the shop’s owner, and Denise Reynolds, 50, one of her best friends from church. Ms. Pancione is dead-set against impeachment.
“Respect the office. It’s a democracy. People voted for him,” she said.
Ms. Reynolds loathes Mr. Trump and blames him for inciting racial hatred. She was once excited about his candidacy — “I thought we needed somebody who understood business in that seat,” she said — but says now that if he were impeached and removed from office, “it would not upset me in the least.”
It’s easy for me to mock Ms. Reynolds. She had all the information she needed in 2016–literally at her fingertips on her smart phone–to understand that Trump was inciting racial hatred and also that his reputation as a savvy and successful businessman was more reality show than actual reality.
But she supported Trump because she thought his business acumen would be good for the country. The Democrats and Republicans had been trading presidents for decades and communities like Culpeper in rural Virginia continued to see their quality of life slip and degrade. Why not put someone in there who was different and would skake things up?
Who knows when his racism finally got to her. Maybe it was after Charlottesville in August 2016. Maybe it was when he talked about the African continent being filled with shithole countries. Maybe it was when he started separating Latinx children from their parents at the border. The possibilities are endless, but she understands it now and it makes her sick. She’d be happy to see Trump impeached.
There are probably a lot more 2016 Trump voters like Sonya Pancione than like Denise Reynolds. Polling data certainly supports that supposition. But it doesn’t take much erosion of Trump’s base of support to make him unelectable in 2020. Where is he going to pick up new support?
The problem, I think, is that high information voters simply don’t understand how low information voters think. How, for example, can 2016 Trump voter Don Foster still be uncertain about the president’s guilt? Doesn’t he have a television and an internet connection? Doesn’t he know where to get actual news reporting rather than right-wing partisan spin?
And in Westerville, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus that will host a Democratic presidential debate Tuesday, Don Foster, who voted for Mr. Trump but no long supports him, said he found the latest allegations as more dire than those investigated by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, involving Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“This one seems more true than the Mueller report,’’ he said. “I’m guessing that Trump really is guilty, I just don’t know yet.’’
But does it really matter if this man doesn’t seem to be able to obtain and process the basic information that is already available in this case? He’s already lost to Trump and seems inclined to believe his removal from office would be justified.
I have no idea why Mr. Foster overlooked all of Trump’s obvious flaws in 2016. I don’t really care very much either. He’s seen the light now, and that’s good enough for me. Elections are about getting the most votes and not about making sure all your supporters have enlightened and well-informed opinions on every topic.
The Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 can and will win a lot of votes from 2016 Trump supporters. This is not a bad thing but a very good thing.
Our candidate(s) just have to be sensitive and savvy enough not to insult (or just as bad, condescend to) those low information voters. The tendency to deplore the deplorables is hard for many to resist.
Elizabeth Warren gay marriage smug comment.
That wasn’t smug. The right has to make middle aged and old white guys feel persecuted because their ideas and policies are both bad and unpopular, so they latch on to stupid nontroversies and try to gin them up into a thing. The media usually falls for it and acts as a force multiplier for bullshit. The GOP hasn’t won on policy and ideas since the 50s.
Besides, she’s correct, and if we can’t mock bigots…
It’s one thing for you (or I, or any given citizen) to mock bigots. It’s another for someone who not only wants to be president of these United States, but also wants to make “big, structural change”.
It takes if not the support, at least the acquiescence, of a significant chunk of people who disagree with some of Warren’s (or yours, or my, or anyone’s) political views to make big, structural change. One of the challenges for any Democrat running for president, particularly one who represents a threat to the status quo (e.g., Warren, H. Clinton, Obama) is navigating the narrow path of inspiring those who want change and reassuring at least some of those who feel threatened by change.
It’s precisely *because* some of those old-fashioned guys who believe marriage should be between a man and a woman can’t find a woman to marry them (or, more likely, they’ve had one or more marriages fall apart), that it’s probably to Warren’s political advantage to refrain from using the “…assuming you can find one!” zinger too often.
After all, she’s a wealthy, successful woman who wants to preside over the country. Why give ammunition to those who already are prone to feel like she looks down on them?
I am having trouble understanding why it so hard to draw the line between the dots.
“I have no idea why Mr. Foster overlooked all of Trump’s obvious flaws in 2016.”
“The Democrats and Republicans had been trading presidents for decades and communities like Culpeper in rural Virginia continued to see their quality of life slip and degrade. Why not put someone in there who was different and would skake (sic) things up?”
This last statement applied to enough people to matter. Outside of whatever bubble the above lens represents – many people’s lives had not gotten better from the crash of 2008. And they were fucking pissed off about it.
I wouldn’t say this is true. The ones who were suffering economically still voted for Clinton, and the ones who were suffering economically and switched to Trump did so for racist reasons. The evidence is quite clear.
But that doesn’t mean you leave votes on the table. If 12% of Trump’s voters were thinking “maybe I agree with him on immigration” but they’re looking around and thinking “not sure this is what I meant, and also he ended up being a typical Republican”, that’s a significant chunk of votes. Further, third party voting was very high in 2016.
And this is why (not that any of us should count on it) next year’s election could be a landslide for the Democrats.
If Trump loses 10% of his 2016 supporters, and third party voting reverts to the 2012 level, then Trump is down under 42% of the popular vote, and his Democratic opponent is over 56%. If I’m not mistaken, that would be the widest popular vote margin since Reagan-Mondale in 1984.
Even if Trump loses just 5% of his 2016 supporters, he’s at 44%; and that assumes a static electorate. In fact, just on the basis of demographic changes alone, the electorate in 2020 will be substantially (1 million votes or more) more hostile to Trump than the 2016 electorate was.
Bravo indeed that X number of The 46% have (finally!) gotten some accurate info about the scoundrel authoritarian Trump from somewhere (or from someone) that they weren’t willing to credit in 2016, but are now willing to believe. It’s a day late and a dollar short, and whether or not their past error ruins the country long term will become apparent only over time, assuming that the country does indeed find a way to rid itself of the American fascist and his lawbreaking presidentialist regime by 2020. But of course the scales dropping from some eyes is welcome.
As you indicate, both polls and the ongoing National Trumpalist Nuremberg rallies already ramping up across the country make clear that the number of Trumpalists suffering buyer’s remorse is likely a small percentage of The 46%. These rallies apparently are the only “defense” to impeachment that Der Trumper intends to mount. And a look at the adoring (white) faces in every pic of these Trumpalist hate-fests makes clear what is motivating most of them.
Where is Der Trumper going to pick up “new support”? Take a look at those photos and you will see many high school and college age white people going out of their way to scream their support and take the smart phone photos of Dear Leader. They likely don’t care much about health care, tax cuts or Justice Boofer. What they like is the sadism at the border, the denunciation of immigrants (illegal and otherwise) and the satisfying white supremacy—just like Mom, Dad and Grandpa, thank you. “He’s keeping his promises!” Will they merely offset the death by natural selection that occurs among The 46% over the past four years or represent an overall increase? Who knows. There are still many “conservatives” being manufactured.
What’s crystal clear is that their hero can’t win the popular vote and won’t even make a pretense of trying. But fortunately the “conservative” movement has told The (remaining) 46% that doesn’t matter–THEIR votes (as a minority faction) are what matters. Hell, the “conservative” movement doesn’t even need to do that, as satisfied (yet befuddled) Trumpites like Ms Pancione are able to believe Trump “won” because “It’s a democracy. People voted for him”. No, it’s not, Ms Pancione, thankfully for you….
The short answer to your question (“Will they merely offset the death by natural selection that occurs among The 46% over the past four years or represent an overall increase?“) is “neither”.
Every year, roughly 3 million (disproportionately older, whiter, wealthier, more conservative) Americans die and roughly 4 million (disproportionately younger, browner, poorer, more liberal) Americans become eligible to vote for the first time.
Those young Trump supporters are vastly outnumbered (at least 2-1) by their peers who oppose Trump in specific and the Republican party in general.
I think what you’re discussing here is the distinction between a political problem and a social problem.
The political problem is tractable — Trump won with a lot of squishy support that no longer backs him. Barring a catastrophic run by the Democrats (always a possibility), he should be voted out. The social problem is much less tractable — a lot of people, some 1/3 of the country or more — support all of Trump’s worst instincts. Some of this is naked tribalism but a lot of it is shared ideology. That ideology needs to be defeated somehow. No one expects this to happen overnight but we can’t give up trying.