The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?

Abstract

Recently released data from the 2016 American National Election Study allow us to offer a multifaceted profile of white voters who voted for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential election. We find that Trump’s supporters voted for him mainly because they share his prejudices, not because they’re financially stressed. It’s true, as exit polls showed, that voters without four-year college degrees were likelier than average to support Trump. But millions of these voters—who are often stereotyped as “the white working class”—opposed Trump because they oppose his prejudices. These prejudices, meanwhile, have a definite structure, which we argue should be called authoritarian: negatively, they target minorities and women; and positively, they favor domineering and intolerant leaders who are uninhibited about their biases. Multivariate logistic regression shows that, once we take these biases into account, demographic factors (age, education, etc.) lose their explanatory power. The electorate, in short, is deeply divided. Nearly 75% of Trump supporters count themselves among his enthusiastic supporters, and even “mild” Trump voters are much closer in their attitudes to Trump’s enthusiasts than they are to non-Trump voters. Polarization is profound, and may be growing.

Ethnography and the Making of “The People”: Uncovering Conservative Populist Politics in the United States

“…Economic explanations also understate the degree to which conservative populist supporters have been middle class (Brubaker ; Williamson et al ). An analysis of the American National Election Study data, for example, determined that Trump voters were less likely to share financial insecurity than an interest in authoritarian leadership or prejudices toward African Americans, immigrants, Muslims, and women (Smith and Hanley ). Those who see racism and national and cultural conflicts as the underlying cause of the conservative populist movements also likely agree with Guminder Bhambra’s assessment that the purported popular concern with the “white working class” is not so much a class concern as a disguised concern with a particular white identity: “the category of ‘class’ is not being used as a neutral or objective one, but rather as a euphemism for a racialized identity politics that is given legitimacy through this evasion” (Bharmbra : 227).…”

Hyvin toimeentuleva, terve ja suvaitsematon – Suomalaisten nuorten poliittiset ideologiat asenneprofiileina tarkasteltuna

“…Esimerkiksi nyt tiedetään jo varsin hyvin, että toisin kuin moni aluksi uskoi, vuoden 2016 Yhdysvaltain presidentinvaaleissa Donald Trumpin äänestäjiä ei niinkään yhdistänyt sukupuoli, koulutustaso tai sosiaalinen luokka, vaan valkoinen ihonväri (esim. Serwer 2017;Smith ja Hanley 2018). Jälkimmäistä kysymystä emme tosin voineet tarkastella aineistomme etnisen homogeenisyyden vuoksi.…”

What is populism? Who is the populist?

“…Mark Elchardus and Bram Spruyt (2016), for instance, surveyed 2,230 Dutch-speaking Belgians and determined that it was the declinism perceived by this group of Flemish people in Belgium-the social discontent of their feeling unfairly treated by society and their inability to address this through formal politics (Spruyt, Keppens, and Droogenbroeck 2016)-which fueled their support for the Vlaams Blok (VB), a radical right populist party in Flanders (Mudde 2012). Another survey, this time from the USA during Trump's campaign for the presidency, shows that his style and rhetoric appealed to Americans weary of expertise, elites, and critical nationalism (Oliver and Rahn 2016) because Trump could connect with people that became "cultural outsiders" (Smith and Hanley 2018) in an increasingly progressive American society that "left them behind" (see Berezin 2017, who suggests certain retired servicepersons of Viet Nam and their disadvantaged children, persons without higher education, and those working in manufacturing and the military, are among Trump supporters). A sense of crisis, then, challenges the effectiveness of existing modes of democratic representation of "social interests, values and demands", making conditions that are more conducive for populist emergence (Roberts 2015).…”