What motivates Trump voters?

Initially after the 2016 elections, there were a lot of articles looking at the make-up of Trump voters. Were they driven by economic concerns? By a desire for change? Or by classic white supremacist/patriarchal goals? Reality is always complex, but the latter has emerged as a clear favorite based on the facts. Many progressives across the Americas have a hard time dealing with white supremacy as a major motor in social conflict, especially in Brazil, Colombia, Central America, Venezuela, and the US. They fear this means neoliberalism will be ignored, and that is their primary evil. But neoliberalism and white supremacy are closely interconnected, coupling social and economic issues makes for a more complete analysis than one dimensional economic reductionism. Overtime, the relationship between neoliberaslism, conservstive economics, and white supermacy emerges on a factual level:

Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote 4/23/2018 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: "Support for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 election was widely attributed to citizens who were “left behind” economically. These claims were based on the strong cross-sectional relationship between Trump support and lacking a college education. Using a representative panel from 2012 to 2016, I find that change in financial wellbeing had little impact on candidate preference. Instead, changing preferences were related to changes in the party’s positions on issues related to American global dominance and the rise of a majority–minority America: issues that threaten white Americans’ sense of dominant group status."

"What about the general election? A few weeks ago, the American National Election Study — the longest-running election survey in the United States — released its 2016 survey data. And it showed that in November 2016, the Trump coalition looked a lot like it did during the primaries. Among people who said they voted for Trump in the general election, 35 percent had household incomes under $50,000 per year (the figure was also 35 percent among non-Hispanic whites), almost exactly the percentage in NBC’s March 2016 survey. Trump’s voters weren’t overwhelmingly poor. In the general election, like the primary, about two thirds of Trump supporters came from the better-off half of the economy." It’s time to bust the myth: Most Trump voters were not working class. 6/5/2017 Washington Post

"Sanders’ defense of Donald Trump’s “white working class” voters can be evaluated on empirical grounds. This is not a case of “unknown unknowns.” What do public opinion and other data actually tell us about the 2016 presidential election? Donald Trump’s voters — like Republicans and conservatives on average — are much more likely to hold negative attitudes toward African-Americans and other people of color. Social scientists have consistently demonstrated that a mix of “old-fashioned” white racism, white racial resentment (what is known as “modern racism”), xenophobia, ethnocentrism, sexism and nativism heavily influenced white conservatives and right-leaning independents to vote for Donald Trump." Bernie Is Wrong and Malcolm Was Right: What White Liberals So Often Get Wrong About Racism and Donald Trump 4/4/2017 Alternet

"Progressives have a blind spot when it comes to race. They do. Conservatives and Republicans don’t have a blind spot when it comes to race. They understand the power of race and they use it. It is mind-boggling to me how tough it is for progressives to have a conversation about race without them wanting to make it a conversation about class and economics." -- Obama Pollster Dishes on the Failures that Led to President Trump 2/20/2017 Alternet

"Are our analysts and historians equally lazy? Will they mask the stench of racism, xenophobia and white supremacy behind wave after wave of sweet-smelling, but ultimately inauthentic, narratives of anti-neoliberal reaction and working class resurgence? Or will they instead write the real history of this moment, in all its complexity?" -- Donald Trump and the Triumph of White Identity Politics 3/24/2017 Counterpunch

It is as if a portion of the electorate is possessed by a complex of white superiority. They are functioning in the political world without their normal intelligence, which is characteristic of a neurotic complex. So they do not see that they are being conned, that the red states will be the first to suffer as they tend to be the net recipients of federal dollars while the blue states are net providers of federal dollars.

This complex is nothing new in US history. The extent and forcefullness displayed can be traced back to the founding of the country, which occured in large part because the South wanted to preserve slavery against the impending British abolition of slavery, which had already occurred in England with the Sommerset case in 1772. See our Slavery and the American Revolution.

One Type of Voter Was Uniquely Vulnerable to Donald Trump and Brexit: Study 3/9/2018 Alternet: "A new Social Psychological and Personality Science study published Thursday found that “neurotic traits positively predicted” shares of voters who opted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election or to “leave” in the Brexit vote that same year.

Articles/Artículos

Why Conservative Parts of the U.S. Are So Angry  1/29/2022 Yes Magazine: "In a growing nationwide trend, the median household incomes of people of color, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, now exceed those of White people in nearly 200 of the 1,500 Republican-trifecta counties—those in which the party controls the governor’s office and both legislative chambers of state government (see Figure 1). This is a visible factor that has fueled Trump voters’ complaints alleging White people’s diminished status."

If Progressives Want to Win, They’ll Have to Talk About White Supremacy  2/21/2020 The Nation: "My research has found that nearly half of Democratic voters are people of color, and a dramatic drop-off in African American turnout in 2016 was a principal factor in Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Conveying the urgency of the fight against white supremacy could be critical to propelling the kind of turnout that will help Democrats win in November."

Trump's election was personal: It's white America's vicious backlash to black success  1/20/2020 Salon: "Donald Trump's installation as president was a proud and unhidden repudiation of the nation's first black president, and no matter how many attempts at misdirection toward economic anxiety or some other, greater complex phenomenon, some element of taking back proprietorship of the country had appealed to an overwhelming number of white people who voted for him. With Trump's lies and distortions normalized by an overmatched, often complicit free press, the writer Michiko Kakutani referred to his presence as "the death of truth." Dozens of books followed along similar themes regarding the decline of standards and accountability, but underneath so much of the apparent discontent, from Charleston to Charlottesville, is an anti-blackness, a reminder of to whom the country belongs. This was a reclaiming."

Christian nationalists are trying to seize power — but progressives have a plan to fight back  12/16/2018 Salon: "This week, new exit-poll data from this year's midterm elections re-emphasized how much the Trump-led GOP depends on evangelical voters, as opposed to the much more discussed "white working class." Among white non-evangelicals, non-college-educated men voted for Republicans, 53 to 44 percent, while women voted Democratic by 57 to 41 percent. But among white evangelicals there was virtually no difference between college and non-college voters in their GOP support: 78 percent among men for both groups, and 73 and 71 percent, respectively, for women."

White Supremacy Apologists Are Having a Field Day  12/7/2018 Truth Out: "This is the same White House that continues to employ senior adviser Stephen Miller, whose gaudy white nationalist résumé goes all the way back to his time at Duke University. The same White House that appointed Ian Smith to the Department of Homeland Security despite his having most of the leading lights of the white supremacy movement on speed dial. The same White House who employs Larry Kudlow as a top economic advisor despite his predilection for having white nationalist houseguests over for birthday parties and other social events. The same White House that thought hiring Steve Bannon, friend to neo-Nazis and racists everywhere, was a grand idea. The same White House where the son of the president constantly retweets white nationalist memes. The same White House where the president himself retweets white nationalist videos."

?Cheap Talk on Race and Xenophobia Keeps Americans from Confronting Economic and Political Peril  12/2/2018 Institute for New Economic Thinking: "I was a kid in a basically red household in the McCarthy era. I have no illusions about what the right is capable of, what the bourgeoisie is capable of, and what the liberals are capable of. In the heyday of the New Left, when people were inclined to throw the fascist label around, I couldn’t get into it. But for the first time in my life, I think it’s not crazy to talk about it. You have to wonder if Obama, who never really offered us a thing in the way of a new politics except his race, after having done that twice, had set the stage for Trump and whatever else might be coming."

Insecure Men Were a Big Trump Demographic in 2016  11/30/2018 Mother Jones: "In contrast, fragile masculinity was not associated with support for Mitt Romney in 2012 or support for John McCain in 2008 — suggesting that the correlation of fragile masculinity and voting in presidential elections was distinctively stronger in 2016."

Donald Trump appeals directly to men who suffer from “fragile masculinity,” psychologist finds  11/29/2018 Salon: "In particular, the researchers found that there was a strong correlation between counties that voted overwhelmingly for Trump and internet searches for topics related to masculine insecurity, including “erectile dysfunction,” “hair loss,” “how to get girls,” “penis enlargement,” “penis size,” “steroids,” “testosterone” and “Viagra.”"

A Conversation with Psychiatrist Justin Frank About How Donald Trump Believes That He is God and Why His Supporters Worship Him  11/13/2018 Chauncey DeVega: "Dr. Frank explains how Donald Trump has a thought disorder and believes that he is God, why Trump's supporters are in love with him, and how Trump's loyalists such as the "MAGA bomber" and others who have disorganized minds seek affirmation and security from their cult leader Donald Trump. In addition, Dr. Frank sounds the alarm about how Donald Trump encourages and gives permission for violence and how Trump's regalia such as the "MAGA" hat is a way for his supporters to live inside of their leader and to become him proxy."

Trump Ghostwriter Explains How the President is 'Obsessed' With Violence  10/27/2018 Alternet: “He loved black people to commit violence against other black people — while he watched,” he explained. Schwartz summed up Trump’s view as, “You do the violence, I’ll watch the violence. I wouldn’t go near it because it would terrify me, but I love watching it.” “Why? Because underneath that is rage,” Schwartz concluded. “This is a man of great rage and the rage is, he’s aggrieved.”

Sociologists Blow Up the Myth that Uneducated White Voters Support Trump Because of 'Economic Anxiety': 'They Share His Prejudices'  9/24/2018 Alternet: "Despite all of the disproved narratives about the “white working class,” it has been repeatedly and conclusively shown that Donald Trump in fact won the White House because of racism and nativism. But sexism was a key element in Trump’s victory as well. These values, beliefs, and behaviors interact with one another. New research by University of Kansas sociologists David Smith and Eric Hanley demonstrates how a socially combustible mix of racism and sexism, in combination with anger and bullying, put the United States on a path to authoritarianism."

Time to Kill the Zombie Argument: Another Study Shows Trump Won Because of Racial Anxieties — Not Economic Distress  9/18/2018 Intercept: "Everyone from Fox News host Jesse Waters to socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders has pushed this whole “economic anxiety” schtick. But it’s a complete and utter myth. As I pointed out in April 2017, referencing both pre-election surveys and exit poll data, the election of Trump had much less to do with economic anxiety or distress and much more to do with cultural anxiety and racial resentment. Anyone who bothers to examine the empirical evidence, or for that matter listens to Trump slamming black athletes as “sons of bitches” or Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” in front of cheering crowds, is well-aware of the source of his appeal."

In the Red: Americans' Economic Woes are Hurting Trump  9/1/2018 Democracy Fund: "While the economic anxiety of “working-class” white people is often identified as a key driver in the ascent of President Donald Trump, our research shows how this theory breaks down in key ways."

The backlash from Trump’s Britain visit will be felt for years to come  7/15/2018 WaPo: "Behind the scenes, Trump’s team has lobbied Britain on behalf of Tommy Robinson, a violent white nationalist and co-founder of the fringe English Defense League, who is now in prison. This open, partisan, U.S. intervention in British politics is unprecedented, going well beyond President Ronald Reagan’s political flirtation with Margaret Thatcher or President Bill Clinton’s friendship with Tony Blair. Trump is supporting not the elected British leader but rather her internal party rivals as well as an extra-parliamentary racist fringe that has very little support in Britain but that matters to U.S. alt-right activists, the core of Trump’s base."

Stephen Miller is the Architect of Trump's Evil Child Separation Policy. Stephen Miller is also a White Supremacist...and the New York Times Won't Admit this Fact  6/20/2018 Indomitable: "America's newsrooms are overwhelmingly white and male. Thus there are comparatively few voices willing to explain how white supremacy and white racism function as core tenets of Trump's regime. Unfortunately, for too many white reporters, journalists and opinion writers Trump and his administration's racism, prejudice, bigotry and violence are viewed as an abnormal curiosity rather than an existential threat to American democracy because they do not feel its pain directly and personally."

Noam Chomsky Explains Exactly What Went Wrong in the 2016 Presidential Election in Brand New Interview  5/12/2018 Alternet: "There's an excellent study of these matters by two outstanding political scientists, Walter Dean Burnham and Thomas Ferguson. They focus in detail on the 2014 election, but the conclusions are general. As they point out, participation is reducing to the level of the days when voting was restricted to white males with property qualifications. The reasons are not hard to figure out. People don't have to read the academic work in political science (these authors, Gilens, Bartels, Page) to know that the large majority are essentially unrepresented, in that their opinions and choices are ignored by their own representatives, who, like others, listen to the voices of the ultra-rich and corporate sector, overwhelmingly. So why bother?"

Rebecca Solnit: Whose Story (and Country) Is This?  5/12/2018 Literary Hub: "In the aftermath of the 2016 election, we were told that we needed to be nicer to the white working class, which reaffirmed the message that whiteness and the working class were the same thing and made the vast non-white working class invisible or inconsequential. We were told that Trump voters were the salt of the earth and the authentic sufferers, even though poorer people tended to vote for the other candidate. We were told that we had to be understanding of their choice to vote for a man who threatened to harm almost everyone who was not a white Christian man, because their feelings preempt everyone else’s survival. “Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks,” Bernie Sanders reprimanded us, though studies showed that many were indeed often racists, sexists, and homophobes."

White fear elected Trump: Political scientist Diana Mutz on the “status threat” hypothesis  5/7/2018 Salon: "I find that those who believe dominant groups such as men, whites and Christians are now discriminated against were very attracted to Trump. Interestingly, the racial attitudes that mattered in 2016 were not the kind that first come to mind, such as racial animosity or the stereotyping of minorities as poor or unintelligent. Instead, in the post-Obama era, what many whites fear is successful minorities in powerful social and political positions. Because status is a relative concept, it is difficult for people to imagine that others’ group status has improved without hurting the status of their own group. Status, like international trade, tends to be perceived as zero-sum."

Trump Voters Driven by Fear of Losing Status, Not Economic Anxiety, Study Finds  4/24/2018 NYT: "For example, Trump support was linked to a belief that high-status groups, such as whites, Christians or men, faced more discrimination than low-status groups, like minorities, Muslims or women, according to Dr. Mutz’s analysis of the University of Chicago study. What does it matter which kind of anxiety — cultural or economic — explains Mr. Trump’s appeal? If wrong, the prevailing economic theory lends unfounded virtue to his victory, crediting it to the disaffected masses, Dr. Mutz argues. More important, she said, it would teach the wrong lesson to elected officials, who often look to voting patterns in enacting new policy."

Study Shows Trump Voters Were Motivated by Fear of Losing Privileged Status—Not Economic Anxiety  4/24/2018 Alternet: "The actual correlation she uncovered involved a “social dominance orientation,” which measures whether people see hierarchy as a good and natural way to organize society. White people who had that view gravitated towards Trump. “It used to be a pretty good deal to be a white, Christian male in America, but things have changed and I think they do feel threatened,” Mutz said."

Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote  4/23/2018 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: "Support for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 election was widely attributed to citizens who were “left behind” economically. These claims were based on the strong cross-sectional relationship between Trump support and lacking a college education. Using a representative panel from 2012 to 2016, I find that change in financial wellbeing had little impact on candidate preference. Instead, changing preferences were related to changes in the party’s positions on issues related to American global dominance and the rise of a majority–minority America: issues that threaten white Americans’ sense of dominant group status. Results highlight the importance of looking beyond theories emphasizing changes in issue salience to better understand the meaning of election outcomes when public preferences and candidates’ positions are changing."

Donald Trump and Paul Manafort Revived Nixon’s Race-Based Hate Strategy for the 21st Century  4/11/2018 Alternet: "Tragically, while the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigated Milteer and Marcello for JFK’s murder (and concluded that “Marcello had the motive, means, and opportunity to assassinate President Kennedy”), the Committee—chaired by Rep. Louis Stokes—didn’t include Marcello or Milteer in their investigation of King’s murder. That was likely because the FBI withheld key files about both men from the Committee. Though, as mentioned earlier, the Committee in 1979 “concluded that there was a likelihood of conspiracy” in King’s assassination, and “financial gain was Ray’s primary motivation.” Not that you’d know about the Committee or its conspiracy conclusion from the mainstream press coverage of King’s assassination."

Thomas Piketty Sees Only One Way to Defeat the Rise of the Radical Right  3/27/2018 Alternet: [Does not mention the role of white supremacy, as is common on the left in the US. Trump voters' main motivation was white supremacy, they had more money and less education, a large demographic not discussed in this paper. Otherwise, a good analysis to be heeded by the neoliberals.]

One Type of Voter Was Uniquely Vulnerable to Donald Trump and Brexit: Study  3/9/2018 Alternet: "A new Social Psychological and Personality Science study published Thursday found that “neurotic traits positively predicted” shares of voters who opted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election or to “leave” in the Brexit vote that same year. According to University of Austin psychology professor Sam Gosling—one of the study’s co-authors—of the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism), ”regions highest on neuroticism are particularly receptive to political campaigns that emphasize danger and loss and that previous campaigns have not tapped into these themes as strongly as we saw in 2016.”"

Fear, Populism, and the Geopolitical Landscape  3/8/2018 Social Psychological and Personality Science: "Two recent electoral results—Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president and the UK’s Brexit vote—have reignited debate on the psychological factors underlying voting behavior. Both campaigns promoted themes of fear, lost pride, and loss aversion, which are relevant to the personality dimension of neuroticism, a construct previously not associated with voting behavior."

Anti-Semitic Incidents See Largest Single-Year Increase On Record, Audit Finds  2/27/2018 NPR: "The Anti-Defamation League has identified 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents in its 2017 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents. That's up from 1,267 in 2016, marking the highest single-year increase since the organization released its first audit in 1979. The annual audit tracks incidents of vandalism, harassment or assault reported to the ADL by law enforcement, media and victims. All reported incidents are assessed by ADL staff members for credibility by seeking independent verification."

U.S. hate groups proliferate in Trump's first year, watchdog says  2/21/2018 Reuters: "The report identified 689 groups associated with the anti-government “Patriot” movement, with about 40 percent of them armed militias. SPLC acknowledged that its report likely failed to capture the full extent of hate-group activity. It said many of them, especially from the alt-right, operate mainly online."

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 'Trump is where he is because of his appeal to racism'  12/8/2017 Guardian: "Abdul-Jabbar nods. “He would never see a little grey-haired lady using such language. When it doesn’t affect your life it’s hard for you to see. Men don’t understand what attractive women go through. We don’t get on a bus and have somebody squeeze our breast. We have no idea how bad it can be. For people to understand your predicament you’ve got to figure out how to convey that reality. It takes time.”"

There's an important lesson Democrats should learn from Election Day 2017  11/9/2017 WaPo: "“The job of Democrats this week, in 2018 and in 2020 is to excite the base,” said Aimee Allison, president of Democracy in Color, a political organization. “The problem with the Democratic Party is that they have been trying to convert Republican voters or cajole white working-class voters to support Democratic candidates who don’t excite the party’s multiracial, multiethnic base. The real heroes, the untold story of this week, is the people who have been on the ground expanding the electorate, registering and talking to voters of color, taking them seriously for years.

After Charlottesville: 7 Key Nazis and Their Links to Putin and Trump  8/21/2017 Alternet: "But there’s something deeper here, something worth getting surprised about — and like so many things with Donald Trump, that deeper thing is Russia: several of the key figures who organized, appeared at, or promoted the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” Rally have strong ties to Moscow."

The One Right-Wing Pundit Most Responsible for Taking White Nationalism Mainstream  8/21/2017 Alternet: "But one of the most effective mainstreamers of white supremacist ideas has been Tucker Carlson, both in his role as a Fox News host and through the website he founded in 2010, the Daily Caller. Carlson started the Daily Caller in 2010 as a right-wing alternative to the Huffington Post, but, as a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center lays out, the website has drifted towards a more white nationalist bent in recent years."

Trump and the Nazis: Our Troll-In-Chief Has a Deep Affinity with the Alt-Right — and with Their Ancestors  8/20/2017 Alternet: "Now, however, after a period of time in which he has shown his true colors, I have no doubt about his ideological provenance. And this is my goal here, to identify those who explicitly articulate Nazi ideology in America today, and then to ask you to start listening to Trump with those views in mind."

White Supremacy in the Age of Trump  8/15/2017 Truth Out: "Certainly, there is no apology for the racism of working-class whites, nor any excuse; but we should seek to understand the ways in which white supremacy and power are completely intertwined. Throughout American history, the economic elite have used vile forms of racism to perpetuate the current hierarchy -- politically, socially and economically. White supremacy is most commonly conceptualized as a way for lower-class whites to feel socially superior to people from other ethnic backgrounds. More important, though, white supremacy is a tried-and-tested means for upper class whites to grow their wealth and power."

Are there white nationalists in the White House?  8/15/2017 Politifact: "Aryeh Tuchman, associate director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, told PolitiFact "we would not consider" any of the four to be white nationalists."

Trump Walks Away From Reporters After Being Asked To Denounce White Supremacists  8/12/2017 Politicus USA: "Condemning violence of any kind and issuing a blanket statement that people “on many sides” are to blame, which Trump did today, is a coward’s way out. It does nothing to calm the chaos in Virginia, and it may actually make things worse by creating a false equivalency between the counter-protesters and the alt-right Nazis."

Rampant White Supremacy at the White House As Trump Tries to Distract His Base  8/6/2017 Alternet: "Even if Trump fails on every policy initiative he tries, he succeeds in whipping up bigotry and sowing animosity and fear in the public. Hate crimes are rising in number and white supremacists feel emboldened. Members of targeted groups are experiencing higher levels of fear and stress. The mental health damage being done by Trump, in and of itself, is impossible to measure. Some of his bigoted ideas are turning into policy, largely thanks to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is as racist as Trump but not nearly as lazy or stupid."

Who Hacked the Election? Ad Tech did. Through “Fake News,” Identity Resolution and Hyper-Personalization  7/30/2017 Media: "Several months ago, I captured hundreds of trackers, scripts, and “ad tech” resources that loaded onto my computer as I visited a group of 110 hyper-partisan, parody, hoax, pseudoscience, and propaganda (ie, “fake news”) sites. These sites form part of what I call the “micro-propaganda machine.”"

Democrats Are Still Chasing Rural White Voters, and It’s a Strategy Doomed to Fail  7/22/2017 Alternet: "Which is a fancy way of saying that they need to give up chasing white voters and instead put their resources towards organizing voters of color, as well as urban whites (particularly women), who embrace these cultural shifts, and try to increase turnout with those groups."

7 Pundits Who Spread the Myth of Trump's Working-Class Voter Base  7/19/2017 Alternet: "Part of the confusion around the socioeconomic status of Trump supporters stems from the fact that 69 percent of Trump supporters did not have college degrees, as the Washington Post reports. But education is a distorted and insufficient measure of class. In fact, around 60 percent of white Trump supporters without college degrees made above the median national income."

What Is 'White Supremacy'? A Brief History of a Term, and a Movement, That Continues to Haunt America  6/23/2017 Alternet: "Where white supremacy is helpful is in understanding systems of thought that otherwise seem random or incoherent. If we consider the white supremacy grand narrative, then someone like Ron Paul makes a lot more sense as a white supremacist than a libertarian. This explains his animus against the Federal Reserve or the IRS, against globalization and immigration, and against various powers of the federal government that have become enshrined over the course of the 20th century. Paul, Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan throughout the 1990s, and Donald Trump today, articulate positions that foreign policy analysts describe as “isolationist” or “protectionist” but are more correctly understood as assertions of white supremacy, as ways to protect the purity of the white race against the encroachments of global multiculturalism (which dilutes the white gene pool) and against the entanglements of foreign adventures seen as emanating from the ZOG conspiracy."

Anti-Racism Author Tim Wise: White America Desperately Wants to Be Numb, and Donald Trump 'Is a Walking, Talking Opioid  6/19/2017 Alternet: "But you gave voice to something important as well with your concerns about how poor white people will now be the focus of the narrative. This re-centers whiteness and then continues to obscure the pain and suffering of folks of color that America never really properly resolved. The second risk also is that this subgenre of writing reinforces a larger sense of hostility to the poor and to the working class. We cannot forget that the author of “Hillbilly Elegy” is still very much connected to the right-wing policy world."

Understanding Contemporary White Supremacy  6/18/2017 Alternet: "It is sometimes too easy in the heat of rhetorical battle to overlook the difference between the denizens of the cultic milieu and those who people the mainstream shores. White supremacists, driven by racial animus and what are frankly rather dubious claims of racial superiority, given the experience of years of fieldwork among their number, are these days few and rather thin on the ground. White supremacy is not just a feeling or instinct, it is a lifestyle that governs every aspect of one’s life — associations and what few friends can be found, conversations with families who prefer you don’t attend public functions in their company, reading material and, God help us all, blogs and internet postings. Few of us have the energy, drive or pure fanaticism to keep up the role. It is not for nothing that the white supremacist groups still surviving in America are more virtual than real." [Jeffrey Kaplan is associate professor of religion at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh.]

Election Con 2016: New Evidence Demolishes the Myth of Trump’s “Blue-Collar” Populism  6/16/2017 Counterpunch: "I agree that progressives have their work cut out for them, in that it’s our job to challenge the classist, bigoted views embraced by the Trump-supporting American right. But it is near impossible to address these issues head on when large segments of the public refuse to even recognize that these problems exist. The path toward a democratic, humane future begins with being honest about the challenges we face. With the wealth of data now available documenting the elitism and bigotry of Trump voters, Americans no longer have an excuse when it comes to embracing willfully ignorant, romantic myths about what’s driving support for this president."

Trump Administration Quietly Rolls Back Civil Rights Efforts Across Federal Government  6/15/2017 Pro Publica: "Now, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the DOJ appears to be turning away from this storied tool, called consent decrees. Top officials in the DOJ civil rights division have issued verbal instructions through the ranks to seek settlements without consent decrees — which would result in no continuing court oversight."

Congresswoman Barbara Lee: Resisting The Rise Of Hatred In The Era Of Trump  6/13/2017 Essence: "Donald Trump rode racism and fear to the White House. He appealed to the fringe elements of Republican extremism and gave White supremacists a signal that it was time to "take their country back."

It’s time to bust the myth: Most Trump voters were not working class.  6/5/2017 Washington Post: "What about the general election? A few weeks ago, the American National Election Study — the longest-running election survey in the United States — released its 2016 survey data. And it showed that in November 2016, the Trump coalition looked a lot like it did during the primaries. Among people who said they voted for Trump in the general election, 35 percent had household incomes under $50,000 per year (the figure was also 35 percent among non-Hispanic whites), almost exactly the percentage in NBC’s March 2016 survey. Trump’s voters weren’t overwhelmingly poor. In the general election, like the primary, about two thirds of Trump supporters came from the better-off half of the economy."

Why—and How—Is Trump's Base Still Loyal to a Guy Who Is a Proven Disaster?  5/24/2017 Alternet: "The most popular theory in the mainstream media is that Trumpists think Trump will bring jobs back. The hypothesis here is that their support for Trump derives entirely from economic anxiety over globalization, loss of manufacturing, the supposed failures of Obamacare, wage stagnation, income inequality, trade deficits, and soaring national debt. But economic angst does not really explain Trumpists’ unwavering devotion to Trump, whose cabinet appointments, executive orders and legislative proposals generally do not help or even pretend to help them."

12 Features of White Working-Class Trump Voters Confirm Depressed and Traumatized Multitudes Voted for Him  5/10/2017 Alternet: “These new results show that feelings of cultural displacement and a desire for cultural protection, more than economic hardship, drove white working-class voters to support Trump in 2016,” says PRRI CEO Robert P. Jones. “The findings cast new light on how Trump’s ‘Make American Great Again!’ slogan tapped these fears and anxieties and a deep sense of nostalgia for a previous time in the country when white conservative Christians perceived that they had more power and influence.”

Economic Anxiety Didn’t Make People Vote Trump, Racism Did  5/8/2017 The Nation: "As we’ve previously written, it is clear racism propelled Trump to the Republican nomination. But how did the racial resentment that powered Trump’s ascent differ from the support for Republican candidates in prior elections? And what was the relative importance of economic peril to voting in 2016 compared to several different types of racism and racial animus exhibited by voters?"

I Met the White Nationalist Who Says Trump Made Him Rough Up a Protester  4/20/2017 Mother Jones: "But over the next several years, Heimbach came out as a full-on white nationalist. He made common cause with members of the National Socialist Movement, the Aryan Terror Brigade, and the Imperial Klans of America. He formed a new group, the Traditionalist Youth Network, which openly advocated partitioning the United States into mini-"ethno-states" based on race. He battled with anti-fascists in Indiana. "The political establishment has made an entire generation of young white men and women into fascists, and that's a beautiful thing!" he told a New York Times reporter in 2016. Heimbach rallied behind Trump's candidacy, and started wearing a red "Make America Great Again" ball cap everywhere."

Was It Racism or Desire for Authoritarian Leadership That Elected Trump? The Right Answer Is Both  4/18/2017 Alternet: "By the way, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Trump’s most serious henchman and a living embodiment of racist authoritarianism, is working day and night to make sure that even if the new president flip-flops on everything else, his pledge to crack down on people of color will be honored."

How To Win With Identity Politics  4/17/2017 Alternet: "Public Policy Polling credits McCrory’s defeat to the Forward Together Moral Movement (FTMM). Founded by the Dr. Reverend William J. Barber, II, the president of the North Carolina NAACP, FTMM has been joined by more than 200 organizations and thousands of individuals. It incorporates multi-issue framing and creatively uses cultural expressions such as storytelling and personal testimonies to elevate the struggles of the LGBTQ community, people of color, immigrants, and the working poor. Leaders with identities spanning these communities hold significant leadership positions in the movement’s efforts. While activism is focused in North Carolina, the movement and its key leaders are supporting similarly styled efforts in numerous states in the south, northeast, and midwest."

Yes, Trump's hard-line immigration stance helped him win the election — but it could be his undoing  4/17/2017 LA Times: "Overall, immigration represented one of the biggest divides between Trump and Clinton voters. Among Trump voters, 67% endorsed building a southern border wall and 47% of them favored it a great deal. In contrast, 77% of Clinton voters opposed building a wall and 67 % strongly opposed it."

Bernie Is Wrong and Malcolm Was Right: What White Liberals So Often Get Wrong About Racism and Donald Trump  4/4/2017 Alternet: ""For example, last Friday Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke in Boston at the Our Revolution Rally, where he said this: "Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks. I don’t agree, because I’ve been there." Given Sanders’ long history of fighting for human rights, his comments are profoundly disappointing. They also demonstrate the blind spot and willful myopia that too many white liberals and progressives have toward white racism in America."

Republicans’ views of blacks’ intelligence, work ethic lag behind Democrats at a record clip  3/31/2017 WaPo: "Over the last two decades, there has never been a bigger divide between white Republicans and Democrats when it comes to views of the intelligence and work ethic of African Americans, according to the new General Social Survey."

White America's Death Crisis: The Pain Is Real, but Our Perception Is Warped by the 'Racial Frame'  3/30/2017 Alternet: "Donald Trump used naked bigotry and obvious racism to win the presidency. His slogan “Make America great again” was a promise to further lift up white Americans by placing their feet even more firmly on the necks and shoulders of black and brown people. This was one of the most obvious themes of Trump’s campaign strategy. It resonated to great effect among Trump’s resentful and spiteful white voters."

Donald Trump and the Triumph of White Identity Politics  3/24/2017 Counterpunch: "Are our analysts and historians equally lazy? Will they mask the stench of racism, xenophobia and white supremacy behind wave after wave of sweet-smelling, but ultimately inauthentic, narratives of anti-neoliberal reaction and working class resurgence? Or will they instead write the real history of this moment, in all its complexity?"

Fear of Diversity Made People More Likely to Vote Trump  3/14/2017 The Nation: "In short, our analysis indicates that Donald Trump successfully leveraged existing resentment towards African Americans in combination with emerging fears of increased racial diversity in America to reshape the presidential electorate, strongly attracting nativists towards Trump and pushing some more affluent and highly educated people with more cosmopolitan views to support Hillary Clinton. Racial identity and attitudes have further displaced class as the central battleground of American politics."

Can we finally ditch the “white working class” myth? Obama-then-Trump voters weren’t the problem  2/23/2017 Salon: "The narrative that the 2016 presidential election was determined by “economic anxiety” among the white working class has again been shown to be largely untrue."

Move Left, Democrats  2/21/2017 NYT: "The far more important — and largely untold — story of the election is that more Obama voters defected to third- and fourth-party candidates than the number who supported Mr. Trump. That is the white flight that should most concern the next D.N.C. chairman, because those voters make up a more promising way to reclaim the White House. The way to win them back is by being more progressive, not less."

Obama Pollster Dishes on the Failures that Led to President Trump  2/20/2017 Alternet: "Progressives have a blind spot when it comes to race. They do. Conservatives and Republicans don’t have a blind spot when it comes to race. They understand the power of race and they use it. It is mind-boggling to me how tough it is for progressives to have a conversation about race without them wanting to make it a conversation about class and economics."

Even in 2016, Democrats Carried Rust Belt Town Centers. Why?  2/17/2017 Slate: "This, then, is an optimistic message about left-wing politics in non-metropolitan America: Those deep-red swaths of countryside in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana are more politically diverse than they look. It just depends on your frame of reference."

The Trump Effect: Spreading Hate at School, at Church, and Across the Country  2/16/2017 Alternet: "When the SPLC first released these findings, right-wing media outlets claimed that there was no evidence that they were related to Trump or the election. But that is false. For one thing, the largest number of incidents occurred on the day after the election, and they declined fairly steadily for the nine days after that. Later, when the SPLC updated its findings to cover the first 34 days after the election, it counted a total of 1,094 bias incidents around the nation. Importantly, it also calculated that 37% of them directly referenced either President-elect Trump, his campaign slogans, or his infamous remarks about sexual assault. Just 26 were anti-Trump, with six of those explicitly anti-white."

Not One or the Other: Class and Identity Politics  2/16/2017 The Islamic Monthly: "After taking a trip to Cuba, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates had this to say about pervasive racism there: “I saw segregation everywhere around me. … I saw a wide gap between rich and poor, and so many poor seemed to have brown faces.” Gates’ reflection shows that even a class-based revolution as thorough as the one that took place there over 50 years ago alone was unable to do away with racism. With this in mind, it is clear that any class-based politics alone cannot do away with racism and other forms of discrimination in the United States either."

Donald Trump’s white nationalist “genius bar”: Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Michael “Decius” Anton and beyond  2/14/2017 Salon: "Donald Trump’s administration is built around a brain trust of white nationalists. To deny that fact is to ignore a crucial element of this national crisis: America’s “greatest generation” defeated Nazism during World War II, and 70 or so years later one of the country’s two leading political parties has injected a more polite version of that poison into its veins and rode to power in Washington on a wave of bigotry and racism."

‘Red’ America is an illusion. Postindustrial towns go for Democrats.  2/14/2017 WaPo: "Before the presidential election, I wrote an article pointing out that the homogeneity of “red” America is an illusion: Small and medium-size postindustrial U.S. towns routinely vote for Democrats — sometimes by very large margins. Few had noticed, because the largely rural counties in which these towns are located were often colored red on election-night maps. In fact, these counties are typically internally polarized, with a solidly Democratic downtown core around Main Street that is surrounded by Republican suburbs and rural areas. The Republican periphery has more voters who go to the polls at higher rates, and so the county is “red” overall."

Trump Has Surrounded Himself With a Phalanx of White Nationalists  2/14/2017 Alternet: "Miller, who made headlines over the weekend defending Trump’s false claims of “voter fraud,” is a fierce advocate of “ethno-nationalism,” meaning the racist belief that Europe and America must protect their culture and civilization (which are white by default) from outsiders who do not share their “Judeo-Christian values.” Miller echoed those talking points on Sunday talk shows, claiming that “millions” of “illegal aliens” voted against Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election."

Trump’s Supporters Believe a False Narrative of White Victimhood—and the Data Proves It  2/12/2017 Alternet: "The rhetoric of victimization has costs — white supremacists are committing unspeakable violenceto combat the perceived threat of immigrants, Muslims and people of color. For the next four years, we are likely to have a government driven by perceptions of white Christian victimhood."

Nothing Will Really Change Until America Reckons with Race  2/9/2017 Alternet: "According to the Public Religion Research Institute, 81 percent of white evangelicals, 60 percent of white Catholics and 61 percent of Mormon voters supported Trump, “despite their evident concerns about his political policies and character.” Those voters basically copped to their desire to maintain white power, with three out of four white evangelicals—more than any other racial or religious group—saying “American culture has changed for the worse since the 1950s.”"

It was the racism, stupid: White working-class “economic anxiety” is a zombie idea that needs to die  1/5/2017 Salon: "Perhaps most importantly, the display shows that the main dividing line between Clinton and Trump voters was on the question of black deservingness. Most voters, regardless of who they supported in the presidential election, thought that average Americans are getting less than they should. Yet, Clinton’s voters were a great deal more likely than Trump’s to say that blacks have also gotten less than they deserve (57 percent to 12 percent respectively)."

It Was the Racism, Stupid: Explaining Trump's Win Using White Working-Class 'Economic Anxiety' Is Just Wrong  1/5/2017 Alternet: "It was not only the much-discussed and much-pitied white working class as a group who gave Trump the election (in combination with successful efforts by the Republican Party to suppress the votes of African-Americans, Latinos and other groups). Nor was it only the possible impact of Russian meddling. It was white voters with college educations as well."

Study: racism and sexism predict support for Trump much more than economic dissatisfaction  1/4/2017 Vox: “Specifically, we find no statistically significant relationship between either the racism or sexism scales and favorability ratings of either [Republican candidate] John McCain or Mitt Romney,” they write. “However, the pattern is quite strong for favorability ratings of Donald Trump.”

“Identity Politics” Takes a Hit  1/2/2017 In These Times: "Bernie Sanders smacked it from the left during a controversial post-election speech in Boston, when he said in response to a Latina’s question, “One of the struggles that you’re going to be seeing in the Democratic Party is whether we go beyond identity politics.”

How Do Republicans Get Away With Voter Suppression?  1/1/2017 Truth Out: "Where are the Democrats? They're learning how to purge voters from the Republicans. The mass rejection of nearly one million "provisional" ballots in the California primary gave that state to Hillary. Remember, Democrats invented Jim Crow."

The Racists in Trump's Base Want Him to Harm Minorities and Immigrants: This Is What We Have to Fight  12/29/2016 Alternet: "Note that for all of the explanations of economic anxiety and economic populism as the reason Trump won, Trump voters aren’t exactly in an uproar over Trump’s plan to install the richest cabinet in U.S. history."

How Trump's victory turns into another 'Lost Cause'  12/28/2016 CNN: "The return of "racial amnesia." That's what some historians are saying as they watch a familiar storyline emerge. Trump's triumph is now being roundly described as a revolt by white working-class voters; racism, sexism and religious bigotry had little, if anything, to do with it. People making this argument are following a script first honed by another group of Americans who made history disappear. After the Civil War, "Lost Cause" propagandists from the Confederacy argued the war wasn't fought over slavery -- it was a constitutional clash over state's rights, they said; hatred toward blacks had nothing to do with it."

Expert Who Has Studied White Supremacy for Almost 50 Years Explains Why Racists Flock to Trump's Rhetoric  12/27/2016 Alternet: "Bertlet, who co-authored “Right-Wing Populism: Too Close for Comfort," hopes to put Trump's crazed theories in historical context. "The use of conspiratorial rhetoric and bigoted rhetoric targeting and demonizing ‘others’ is nothing new in American politics. It comes and goes in cycles that are not regular. So it’s not a pendulum. There’s no time frame." "

Trump and the Pain of Blue-Collar Whites  12/16/2016 Consortium News: "The shocking new report that U.S. life expectancy declined last year is not only a disturbing indicator of Americans’ troubled physical health — our expected lifespan now ranks only 31st in the world — but of our troubled political health as well. Social scientists and a few number-crunching journalists have uncovered surprising geographic correlations between white voters’ propensity to support Donald Trump and rates of drug overdoses, suicide and morbid conditions like obesity, which are major contributors to the national decline in life expectancy."

Greg Palast: By Rejecting Recount, Is Michigan Covering Up 75,000 Ballots Never Counted?  12/13/2016 Democracy Now: "Officially, Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes. But a record 75,335 votes were never counted. Most of these votes that went missing were in Detroit and Flint, Michigan, majority-black cities. How could this happen? Did the Russians do it? Nyet. You don’t need Russians to help the Michigan GOP. How exactly do you disappear 75,000 votes? They call them spoiled votes. How do you spoil votes? Not by leaving them out of the fridge. Most are lost because of the bubbles. Thousands of bubbles couldn’t be read by the optical scanning machines."

Mourning for Whiteness  11/21/2016 Toni Morrison: "On Election Day, how eagerly so many white voters—both the poorly educated and the well educated—embraced the shame and fear sowed by Donald Trump. The candidate whose company has been sued by the Justice Department for not renting apartments to black people. The candidate who questioned whether Barack Obama was born in the United States, and who seemed to condone the beating of a Black Lives Matter protester at a campaign rally. The candidate who kept black workers off the floors of his casinos. The candidate who is beloved by David Duke and endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan."

Toni Morrison: Fear Of Losing White Privilege Led To Trump’s Election  11/21/2016 Huff Post: "Morrison’s take on the election is one that has been echoed by many other commentators, including Van Jones, who described it as a “whitelash against a changing country.” As the uptick in hate crimes across the country and Trump’s appointment of controversial figures like Steve Bannon to his cabinet continues, it becomes clearer and clearer and clearer that race most definitely played a role in this election."

Unlike other Latinos, about half of Cuban voters in Florida backed Trump  11/15/2016 Pew Research: "In Florida, Cubans were about twice as likely as non-Cuban Latinos to vote for Donald Trump. More than half (54%) supported the Republican president-elect, compared with about a quarter (26%) of non-Cuban Latinos, according to National Election Pool exit poll data."

Not a Revolution – Yet  11/15/2016 Verso: "Although the findings are controversial and perhaps misinterpreted by David Atkins in the American Prospect, the Edison/New York Times exit polls indicate that Trump relative to Romney achieved only the slightest improvement amongst Whites, perhaps just one percent, but “bested him by 7 points among Blacks, 8 points among Latinos and 11 points among Asian Americans.”"

When Michael Moore Says Clinton’s Loss Isn’t About Racism, You Know It’s Not. And It Really Wasn’t Sexism Either  11/14/2016 Town Hall: "All you have to do is look at the counties Trump won to see that this is a genuine working class uprising that delivered the Rust Belt to Trump—and it was extensive and overwhelming (via WaPo)."

«C’est l’abstention, imbécile!» Les leçons de l'élection de Donald Trump  11/12/2016 Mediapart: "Le racisme et la xénophobie sont les symptômes, non pas d’une souffrance économique qui affecte réellement les classes populaires, mais d’un ressentiment qui traverse toutes les classes – dans l’électorat de Donald Trump comme dans celui de Marine Le Pen. Une politique de gauche ne saurait donc se donner pour objet premier de sauver les brebis égarées qui pourraient bien être des loups."

How Trump won the presidency with razor-thin margins in swing states  11/11/2016 WaPo: "Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania account for 46 electoral votes. If Clinton had won these states, she could have sealed the presidency with 274 total electoral votes. This election was effectively decided by 107,000 people in these three states. Trump won the popular vote there by that combined amount. That amounts to 0.09 percent of all votes cast in this election."

The Election was Stolen – Here’s How  11/11/2016 Greg Palast: "Crosscheck in action: Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107 Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922"

Trump May Be Sexist and Racist, But That’s Not the Only Reason He Won  11/11/2016 American Prospects

The Election Came Down to 107,330 Votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan  11/10/2016 Weekly Standard: "Donald Trump owes his victory in the Electoral College to three states he won by the smallest number of votes: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So it's fair to say that the 2016 presidential election was decided by about 100,000 votes out of than 120 million ballots cast. According to the latest tallies, Trump won Pennsylvania by 1.1 percentage points (68,236 votes), Wisconsin by 0.9 points (27,257 votes), Michigan by 0.2 points (11,837 votes). If Clinton had won all three states, she would have won the Electoral College 278 to 260. She fell short in all three, of course, and that's why we are now getting accustomed to the reality of President-elect Donald J. Trump."

The Twisted Pretzel Logic of the “It’s Not Economic Anxiety” Crowd  11/7/2016 Washington Monthly: "This Friday I wrote an article at The American Prospect reasserting and proving the importance of economic anxiety to explain the rise of Donald Trump. Similar pieces have also been written, but it hasn’t stopped a new conventional wisdom from developing that the Trump phenomenon is all about prejudice and race. That this Known Fact is usually coming from the very same people who failed to predict Trump’s rise in the first place is not surprising, and it’s based on a misinterpretation of insufficient data."

MIAMI CUBANS 4 TRUMP AND THE BATTLE FOR THE NATION.  11/7/2016 Cuba Counterpoint: "The exilio histórico’ support for Trump was a given. From Spanish talk radio, to public manifestos (like that of the 92-year old soap opera writer Delia Fiallo making the case that Clinton wants to impose a Soviet-type regime, Obamacare being exhibit #1), to demonstrations in front of the iconic Versailles Restaurant in Calle Ocho, the aging Cuban exiles have made the case for Trump on the basis of U.S. Cuba policy and historic resentment against the Democratic Party."

Racism Alone Doesn’t Explain Trump’s Support, Which Also Reflects Economic Anxiety  11/4/2016 NYT: " It is no accident that Nazism sprung from the economic horrors of the 1930s, or that neo-fascist groups like Golden Dawn in Greece rose from the terrible economic conditions facing Europe in the age of austerity. The Brexit vote in Great Britain was, indeed, fueled by cultural and racial resentments—but the flames of those resentments were fanned by economic hardship. Conversely, it is also no accident that the greatest civil rights expansions for large minority groups have tended to come during periods of relative economic prosperity, as was the case during the postwar boom of the 1960s."

Trump voters earn a lot more than you might think  5/5/2016 USA Today: "As compared with most Americans, Trump’s voters are better off. The median household income of a Trump voter so far in the primaries is about $72,000, based on estimates derived from exit polls and Census Bureau data."

The Mythology Of Trump’s ‘Working Class’ Support  5/3/2016 Fivethirtyeight: "As compared with most Americans, Trump’s voters are better off. The median household income of a Trump voter so far in the primaries is about $72,000, based on estimates derived from exit polls and Census Bureau data. That’s lower than the $91,000 median for Kasich voters. But it’s well above the national median household income of about $56,000. It’s also higher than the median income for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters, which is around $61,000 for both."