President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters are motivated by their prejudices, not economic concerns, social scientists contend. Will Democrats stop trying to win their votes?
In January, Smith and his University of Kansas colleague, associate sociology professor Eric A. Hanley, published a 47-page paper deconstructing the Republican president’s appeal. Building on decades of scholarship about the lure of authoritarianism and their own analysis of American voting psychology in 2012 and 2016, the social scientists make an argument that some may find offensive and others unsurprising.
It goes something like this: Trump’s biggest supporters are motivated by bigotry and want him to hurt the people they dislike.
Note: There’s a lot to unpack in this article, and this just seems to be the hook.
Sigh I’ve heard my parents and their neighbors complain about “all the Jews” buying houses to rent to “all the Mexicans” who now live in their neighborhood. (Hint: there is no way that 100% of the “Mexicans” they refer to are actually Mexican. But being so nuanced isn’t a skill racists tend to have.)
I hate houses being bought up by big landlords, too, and I know that being constantly bugged by realtors (who just want to turn around and rent those houses out anyway) is something that bothers those particular home owners. I would be great if we could talk about those problems for what they are, without bringing in people’s religion, culture, or national origin. The only war is a class war, and although even these people agree that a class war of some type exists, it seems that some people love to hate so much that it just gets added to a pile of things to hate.
It’s almost like they’re the opposite of polyamorous, some kind of poly-misery, where they can’t hate just one group. Ugh.