Trumps Win Was About Culture (not so much about the econony). Understand This.
I remember about a month or so before the election-there were polls/surveys telling us that the trumpsters were well off (or middle of the road folks) financially--at least not in the poor house. Maybe there is a lot to this article.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/21/trump-s-win-was-about-culture-understand-this.html
Trump’s Win Was About Culture. Understand This.
The media have way overstated the economic frustration of Trump’s voters. Their anger was cultural. If you get this wrong, you’ll get everything else wrong.
Jack Schwartz
11.21.16 12:02 AM ET
......................The conventional wisdom explaining Trump’s victory is that the Democrats arrogantly embraced the politics of cultural identity while ignoring the economic frustrations of a disgruntled white majority that deserted them for someone who appealed to their justified grievances. It was the economy. But was it?
As we look more carefully at the voting results a different pattern emerges: In effect, the election was a contest between two coalitions reflecting not an equality gap but a cultural one. The first, and much ballyhooed, was the Democratic alliance of the upwardly mobile, the college educated, the urban, together with ethnic and social minorities who had often been on the fringes of American society. But there was a second coalition as well: the religious right, composed of Protestant evangelicals and conservative Catholics who felt their confessional principles were under assault by a state that had tilted far too secular; millions of NRA members who felt assailed by government intrusions on what they took to be their Second Amendment rights; political conservatives and right-wing ideologues who were affronted by the liberal policies of the Democrats; the affluent who had never left the Republican ranks and were appalled by the idea of sharing their earnings with the unworthy; and, yes, the disaffected left-behind rural whites who formed only a segment of this cohort, albeit an impassioned one.
In fact, this alliance was not primarily economic—although painting it so was politically potent—but cultural. Many of its members were affluent, quite a few well off. They had little problem with technology and globalization, much less well-placed lobbying, from which many benefited. Their grievance was that they were being left behind not economically but socially. As Donald Trump astutely pointed out in cultivating them: “This is your last chance.” His brilliant appeal to “make America great again,” was, for most, not a call for economic redistribution or job opportunity but for social relevance. His message was nothing less than to literally Take America Back to an imagined past that was as longed for as it was illusory, a past where their values were ascendant and where the others knew their place.
Make no mistake, this election was not primarily about the economy. For Trump’s adherents, it was about nothing less than saving the soul of the nation. Their quarrel with government was not that they were doing badly but that “the others” were making inroads, catching up, and, if unchecked, they would somehow surpass the Real Americans. The impulses of Trump’s legions were not racial, but tribal. What was “elite” about their foes was not their finances but their fluidity, their openness to change, which conservatives saw as a challenge not to their pocketbooks but a threat to their belief system.
Which is why the passions of this election had the force of a religious war and Donald Trump was seen as a savior. It explains why so many people voted for him, well aware of his deficiencies and how unfit he was for the White House. In religious terms, a tool of divine deliverance may be flawed, but it must still be wielded. Trump was such a scourge. We will see how he does the Lord’s work..................
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