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How the G.O.P. Elite Lost Its Voters to Donald Trump
NY Times ^ | 28 Mar 2016 | NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Posted on 03/28/2016 8:03:06 AM PDT by mandaladon

The manufacturing executives had gathered in an Atlanta conference room last year to honor their senior United States senator, Johnny Isakson, for his tireless efforts on their behalf in Washington. But as the luncheon wound down, Mr. Isakson found himself facing a man from Coweta County. The man, Burl Finkelstein, said trade policies with Mexico and China were strangling the family-owned kitchen-parts company he helped manage, and imperiling the jobs it provided. Mr. Isakson politely brushed him off, Mr. Finkelstein recalled, as he had many times before.

So when the Georgia primary rolled around this month, Mr. Finkelstein, along with many others in his town, pulled the lever for Donald J. Trump, who made him feel that someone had finally started listening. “He gets it,” Mr. Finkelstein said in a recent interview. “We’ve sold ourselves out.”

As the Republican Party collapses on itself, conservative leaders struggling to explain Mr. Trump’s appeal have largely seized on his unique qualities as a candidate: his larger-than-life persona, his ability to dominate the airwaves, his tough-sounding if unrealistic policy proposals. Others ascribe Mr. Trump’s rise to the xenophobia and racism of Americans angry over their declining power.

But the story is also one of a party elite that abandoned its most faithful voters, blue-collar white Americans, who faced economic pain and uncertainty over the past decade as the party’s donors, lawmakers and lobbyists prospered. From mobile home parks in Florida and factory towns in Michigan, to Virginia’s coal country, where as many as one in five adults live on Social Security disability payments, disenchanted Republican voters lost faith in the agenda of their party’s leaders.

In dozens of interviews, Republican lawmakers, donors, activists and others described — some with resignation, some with anger —

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Extended News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2016gopprimary; betrayal; dyingonthestreets; elections; gope; hope; ows; ronpaul2; trump; trump4singlepayer; trump4tariffs; trump4unions; trumpiselite; trumpisl33t; trumpowc; trumpows; trumpronpaul
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Most of these voters had long since given up on an increasingly liberal and cosmopolitan Democratic Party. In Mr. Trump, they found a tribune: a blue-collar billionaire who stood in the lobby of a Manhattan skyscraper bearing his name and pledged to expand Social Security, refuse the money of big donors, sock it to Chinese central bankers and relieve Americans of unfair competition from foreign workers.The GOP will never be the same again!
1 posted on 03/28/2016 8:03:07 AM PDT by mandaladon
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To: mandaladon

Long article well worth reading...


2 posted on 03/28/2016 8:05:10 AM PDT by mandaladon (Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself. Mark Twai)
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To: mandaladon

GO TRUMP!


3 posted on 03/28/2016 8:06:16 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: mandaladon

I just hope Donald doesn’t blow this and it looks like he just might. He has a powerful platform, we’ve not seen since Reagan and he is hell-bent on saying stupid crap and playing “Gotcha Last”. I wish to hell he’d grow up. We just had 2 more Terror attacks this weekend (Brussels & Pakistan) and what are the Pubbies talking about? Model photos and who Cruz is boinking. What the hell..........


4 posted on 03/28/2016 8:09:11 AM PDT by Din Maker
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To: Mollypitcher1

AMEN!!! Go Trump!!!


5 posted on 03/28/2016 8:09:35 AM PDT by HarleyLady27 ('THE FORCE AWAKENS!!!' Trump; Trump; Trump; Trump; 100%)
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To: mandaladon

red up of elitist , ivy league lawyers and like who become elected and then don’t do what they said they would do.

That is why trump is winning and people are fed up of the elitist good ole boys club.


6 posted on 03/28/2016 8:11:08 AM PDT by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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To: mandaladon
Long article well worth reading

Yes, yes it is.

An actual honest piece of journalism from the New York Times, with no snark.

First time for everything.

7 posted on 03/28/2016 8:12:53 AM PDT by M. Thatcher
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To: Din Maker
But we, as voters behind him, don't really know just what he is doing behind the scenes...he has Sessions, and a lot of others helping him with his Foreign Policies, he's come along ways on that one...

He has some top attorneys looking into these ‘stolen delegates’, so he's not just ‘tweeting’ he does that to keep the media on twitter and face book to see just what he is doing, and they don't know anymore than we do, so they make their own news up...

I fully trust that whatever Trump is doing, he's doing for America and the American Voters...

8 posted on 03/28/2016 8:13:13 AM PDT by HarleyLady27 ('THE FORCE AWAKENS!!!' Trump; Trump; Trump; Trump; 100%)
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To: mandaladon

Thanks for posting this. It’s a great piece.


9 posted on 03/28/2016 8:13:49 AM PDT by Dana1960
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To: mandaladon
Long article well worth reading...

Agreed. I have no idea how this got into the NYT, but it's very good and worth reading in its entirety, even at nytimes.com

10 posted on 03/28/2016 8:13:57 AM PDT by Pollster1 ("A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless." - Scalia)
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To: mandaladon

Lost? The GOP lied to, screwed, cheated on,
abused, and sent the IRS against, their voters.

The GOP deserves to be decimated on the steps of the Capitol.


11 posted on 03/28/2016 8:14:22 AM PDT by Diogenesis ("When a crime is unpunished, the world is unbalanced.")
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To: mandaladon

Considering over 60% of the Republican base is voting for someone else. They didn’t “lose” their voters to Trump.


12 posted on 03/28/2016 8:16:00 AM PDT by Durbin
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To: mandaladon

I don’t know how to do it myself, but I hope this ends up in the Breaking News side of our page!


13 posted on 03/28/2016 8:16:12 AM PDT by Dana1960
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To: Din Maker
Model photos and who Cruz is boinking.

First things first. The semi-retarded midget mentioned above must be dispatched.

14 posted on 03/28/2016 8:18:09 AM PDT by Stentor
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To: mandaladon

“From mobile home parks in Florida and factory towns in Michigan, to Virginia’s coal country, where as many as one in five adults live on Social Security disability payments...”

Just when did those people (many of my relatives) become the prototypical Republican base? Maybe they have but only because the finally gave up on the Dems. This class stood by the Dems while they eviscerated our industrial base with the EPA, DOE, OSHA, oppresive business taxes, unions, and the like. Now they hear a populist who will hold someone else to account their own former party’s mistakes.

China is not the problem. Our government inflicted wounds are the problem. Free the American businessman and watch what happens. By the way that is exactly how we won WW2. In order to ramp up industrial output FDR was forced to free business from the idiotic regulatory schemes of the previous years.


15 posted on 03/28/2016 8:22:38 AM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
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To: mandaladon
Mr. Ryan was asked if Republicans needed to respond to less-affluent voters who believed that Republicans were tending only to the interests of those at the top... “People don’t think like that,” he said. “People want to know the deck is fair. Bernie Sanders talks about that stuff. That’s not who we are.”

Wrong deck, Paul. You are on the deck of the Titanic.

16 posted on 03/28/2016 8:23:19 AM PDT by AndyJackson
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To: Stentor

Cruz isn’t retarded. Glenn Beck emits insanity.
I suspect this would happen to anyone around Beck for too long.

Cruz does need to be quarantined and rehabilitated before he will become ready for public life though.


17 posted on 03/28/2016 8:23:26 AM PDT by MrEdd (Heck? Geewhiz Cripes, thats the place where people who don't believe in Gosh think they aint going.)
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To: mandaladon

“Long article well worth reading...”

Why? Looks to me like he’s just puking up the same old leftard insanity. The only difference is that the drooling moron is claiming that people support Trump because they agree with the Times.


18 posted on 03/28/2016 8:25:55 AM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: mandaladon

Placemark


19 posted on 03/28/2016 8:26:51 AM PDT by Guenevere (If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do....)
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To: Din Maker

I’m afraid he has already blown it. The guy has blow-hard disease and has turned off so many voters it is hard to believe that he even takes the election seriously. His son, Donald Jr. is amazingly gifted with speaking FOR his dad. The Donald should let him start writing his speeches and start listening to some advice:

* Like Levin says, stay OFF OF TWITER (stupid and juvenile)
* Stop getting into petty fights about wives with Cruz (it only makes women hate you)
* Stop sounding like a ‘broken record’ and come up with some new talking points to remind people of what is at stake in this election.
* Democrats are the enemy so stop with the cat fight with Cruz! Take it to Hillary and Bernie!


20 posted on 03/28/2016 8:28:16 AM PDT by demkicker (My passion for freedom is stronger than that of Democrats whose obsession is to enslave me.)
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