Posted on 05/18/2018 11:08:10 AM PDT by ethom
In the year and a half since Donald Trump’s unexpected election to the presidency, a prevailing theory has emerged: It was “economic anxiety” that led disillusioned, working-class white voters to cast their ballots for the New York real-estate mogul.
A recent study out of the University of Kansas suggests otherwise. Drawing from American National Elections Studies data, KU sociologist David Smith found that theory to be an inaccurate stereotype, albeit a “well-intentioned” one, that ignores the millions of white, working-class voters who he says voted against Trump because they opposed his attitudes toward minorities, Muslims, immigrants and women.
“The election study results show that pocketbook worries are common across all boundaries,” says Smith, a professor of sociology at KU. “Trump voters, Clinton voters, pretty much all voters expressed a similar level of pocketbook concern.”
In other words, financial stress didn’t distinguish Trump supporters from other voters in the 2016 election, says Smith.
His findings, co-authored by Eric Hanley, an associate professor of sociology at KU, were recently published in the journal Critical Sociology. For their analysis, Hanley and Smith used American National Election Studies data on 1,883 presidential election voters, of whom 52 percent voted for Trump.
They examined voting behavior along demographic lines — gender, education, age, marital status and income level — and in connection with a dozen different attitudes. Among these were biases and the desire for “domineering and intolerant leaders who are uninhibited about their biases,” according to the Critical Sociology paper.
After the 2016 election, “a lot of people in the liberal camp” and others looking to understand Trump’s victory accepted the notion that his supporters were simply rallying behind an outsider who promised to shake things up, says Smith. Some hoped “that a lot of people voted for Trump with regrets,” he explains, referring to the idea that some reluctantly supported Trump because of economic concerns, not because they “liked everything they heard from him.”
“Some of that may be part of the story,” Smith says. “But the major finding from the election study is that Trump voters, whether strong or mild, share opinions that are very close to each other and quite far from other voters.”
The attitudes that fueled Trump’s victory were more prevalent in some groups than others, Smith found — married, older, male and less-educated white voters were all more likely than average to vote for Trump. But Smith attributes this trend to Trump-like attitudes being more widespread among those groups.
For example, younger, college-educated, unmarried and female voters who shared Trump’s attitudes also voted for him in large numbers, Smith found. What’s more, plenty of older, married, college-educated white men didn’t vote for Trump, Smith’s analysis shows.
“He seems to be a lightning rod in a way that previous politicians were not,” Smith says of Trump’s popularity.
Understanding Trump’s meteoric rise to the presidency doesn’t begin and end with the 2016 election, Smith says. He and Hanley are now turning their attention to data from earlier elections in order to better comprehend the nation’s growing political divide.
They hope to submit their findings, which will also examine the stereotype of the “white working class,” for publication within the next few months.
“The clear point is that 2016 is quite different from 2012,” Smith says, drawing comparisons between Trump and Mitt Romney. “We suspect that 2012 and 2008 were not as different as 2012 and 2016, but that’s a guess. We’re hoping to understand it better.”
I live nearby and I can assure you there are at least 2 or 3 Trump voters in Lawrence, Kansas. Consider the source of the study. Lawrence is on par with Austin or Berkeley.
Hmmmm. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the dims nominating an incredibly corrupt old biotch. I’m still hoping to see her in orange. We’re supposed to be a nation of laws, not men. As it is, we’re living Animal Farm. All pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than others.
There’s never been a larger more intolerant group than the nationwide voters for Barack Obama.
“Guilt-me-not.”
It’s amazing to me that even Judeo-Christian practices, culture, and ehtics fade in our country (and indeed all over the West), the use of guilt for political persuasion has picked up. “Racism, colonialism, sexism, ageism, able-ism, and the accusations of countless other microaggressions are supposed to nudge us into pulling the lever for the huge, amorphous, stinking blob that is today’s Democrat Party.
this could be the next DNC talking point! they have tried everything else...
Let them bring it on. There is no excuse for the attack on the heritage represented in the Constitutional intent. And no Constitutional (legal) basis for the Leftist policies.
I was a liberal in the 1980s & 1990s, & a conservative since late 2000. Reagan & both Bushes were despised by the left. It seem
Yeah, I am kind of intolerant of the government actively destroying my children’s and grandchildren’s futures. I guess I am just funny that way.
Everyone has “pocket book concerns”
Trump voters worry about being able to keep their money.
Democrat voters worry about losing access to taxpayer money.
The longer they don’t get it, the better off we are.
yea, keep pushing that.
“Intolerant” means knowledgeable about and opposed to Illegalism. To me that means Trumpsters understand the greatest danger to this nation.
"Researchers Say ‘intolerant’ Attitudes, not Economic Anxieties, Fueled Trump’s 2016 Victory"
"Unindoctrinated Say 'intolerant' Attitudes, not Honest Research Fuels Another Rigged Leftwing Study
I can’t think of a bigger waste of time than reading what a goverment resarchers’ study “suggests.”
As of right now, half the people in this country make $30,000 or less per year. Think about that.
Sounds like Marxist sociologists reviving the Frankfurt School's authoritarian personality pseudo-psychology to promote the type of propaganda that was previously used against Barry Goldwater by Richard Hofstadter.
I will not tolerate living next door to MS-13.
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