There are lots of people who think Donald Trump is a boor but plan to vote for him anyway. I'm not talking here about the dead-enders who worship Trump, but the center-right voters who really don't like him but will hold their noses and mark their ballot for him even so. Why? Because the alternative is voting for a Democrat.
You may wonder what's so scary about that. The answer is pretty simple: they don't like Democratic policies. They think we let in too many illegal immigrants. They think we spend too much money and run up the deficit. They think we're too soft on criminals. They think we're too willing to raise taxes in order to spend it on the poor. They think we're sexual libertines. They think we care more about saving a few fish than we do about jobs. They think we're pro-abortion. They think we want religion gone from public life. They think we've been hijacked by identity politics. They think we want to take away their guns.
And guess what? Put aside the uncharitable wording of these complaints and they're basically right about all this stuff.
It's common to say that people don't vote for policy, but that's dead wrong. Sure, they don't care much about minutiae like Title 42 or debt ceiling fights, but they care a lot about the broad outlines. And a lot of them believe the basics of Democratic policy are misguided and dangerous.
The economy affects voters. Fox News affects voters. Political hysteria affects voters. And in a country divided nearly 50-50 that makes all those things important. But by far the most important thing of all is broad policy. If you want to attract more voters on a durable basis, that's what you need to pay attention to.
Those questions are gobsmacking in their biased wording. What is the "General Social Survey?"
It's a survey conducted yearly since 1972 by the University of Chicago. Their web site has much more information:
https://gss.norc.org/
Well, Kevin's post has the problem with being technically correct but 100% wrong. Its not the "policies," its how the issues are ranked.
Being "divided" as a country isn't because both sides, for example, agree on some regulation of Issue A but disagree on that the regulation should be. That's how Kevin thinks, which is why he posts like this. To take just a couple of issues:
Dems think addressing climate change is perhaps the most important thing any government can do at the moment. Republicans think climate change is a hoax.
Republicans think Democrats are intentionally opening boarders so that white Americans can be replaced with brown criminals. Democrats think a certain amount of immigration is always required and the system we have is procedurally flawed.
Democrats think a woman's right to make medical decisions over her own body is a fundamental right, and that regulation of abortion needs to take that into account. Republicans believe life begins at conception and abortion is murder.
One could go on. But these charts, one again, misstate the actual Repub coalition.
I think that is true, but I think the deciding factor in elections is often gas prices. Honestly, I don't think anything else will matter if in October 2024, gas is at "record" highs. This country will trade away anything for cheaper gas.
There are lots of people who think Donald Trump is a boor but plan to vote for him anyway. ... You may wonder what's so scary about that. The answer is pretty simple: they don't like Democratic policies.
The second part is true. There are broadly different positions regarding particular policies, the two parties have adopted different collections of positions, and many voters consider those differences and prefer the party whose collection of positions more closely matches their own. That's how it's supposed to work.
The problem with applying this nice, tidy image of democracy to Trump is, he's not merely a "boor." Leaving his cultists aside -- policy positions matter little to adherents of a cult of personality -- the remainder of those who support him (ie Republicans) do so despite the fact that he is a pathologically self-centered authoritarian who cares nothing at all for democracy or the rule of law, and who -- apart from his lifetime of general criminality -- participated for months in an organized effort to overthrow the results of a national election, including violently interrupting the peaceful transfer of power for the first time the nation's history.
In other words, the non-cultist Republicans are perfectly happy with a violent antidemocratic authoritarian running things, as long as they get their way on various policies. And that is hardly consistent with a nice, tidy image of democracy in which parties are sorted by policy position. So no, they DON'T get a pass for voting for a "boor" because "they don't like Democratic policies." Voting for a violent antidemocratic authoritarian is NOT okay no matter what your policy positions are.
This.
+1
+10. The issue with Trump and anyone who thinks about voting for him and his followers is NOT POLICY. It's much more fundamental. Do you believe in a democracy where very real policy differences are worked out in public and decided by elections or not ? Period.
"In other words, the non-cultist Republicans are perfectly happy with a violent antidemocratic authoritarian running things..."
What makes you think everyone that may vote for Trump is "perfectly happy" with this? On the contrary, most non-cultist republicans (as you call them) are far from perfectly happy with the prospect of voting for him. It's a huge moral dilemma that many of us face.
I don't get the moral dilemma. Your party is being led by Donald Trump. It's not about policy differences. Policy differences are worked out through the democratic process. Donald Trump and those who follow him tried to overthrow the government after an election he lost.
So, do you believe in a democracy where very real policy differences are worked out in public and decided by elections or not ?
@RZM: +1
Very, very, very far from being a Republican, but I do have a certain empathy for the potential situation here. It's about the balance between harm and good. Were I a Republican of a certain bent, I can imagine trying to weigh the harm of an autocrat like Trump gaining power versus the harm of Democrat [sic] policies.
And sure, from my actual perspective, this is so from even being a contest that it's laughable. But if I actually believed that Democrat [sic] policies were damaging the country in fundamental ways, then it could be close.
Thanks. That's the point I was trying to make. I'm a republican and I'm not voting for Trump if he is the candidate. But I do have family and friends that will because, to them, democratic policies and the harm they cause are a greater evil. But this doesn't mean they are "perfectly happy" voting for Trump. Most of them would rather vote for any other republican.
A reminder, then, that's there's a primary process underway.
But exactly what democratic policies do they think are more harmful than ignoring the results of a democratic election and encouraging an insurrection based on complete demonstrable nonsense ? The Inflation Reduction Act ? Expansion of the Affordable Healthcare Act to include greater subsidies for prescription drugs ? A new (modest) gun control and safety bill ? These all passed with bipartisan support from our democratically elected representatives .
Are your friends and relatives children who throw tantrums when they don't get their way ?
Or worse yet, are the same type of people who supported Mussolini because they thought (probably incorrectly) that he got the trains to run on time ?
No. It's not a moral dilemma. It's a sin.
And apparently most Democrats prefer taking the risk that Trump will win to moving far enough right to convince a substantial number of moderate Republicans to vote for them to avoid Trump.
This. This over and over and over.
After 8 years of Clinton, the Left wanted MORE NOW. Thus we got W.
Same after 8 years of Obama.
There are enough on the Left that are simply spoiled children. And that is the most likely case next year, too.
Kevin, you should be consistently using a zero-based y-axis here.
+1
I don’t want to argue about most of this, but there’s one thing Kevin is dead wrong about; inexplicably so. Deficit/debt. Anyone voting for Republicans over that is beneath foolish.
I came here to make this same point. People who think Democrats run up the deficit are not right. They are dead wrong. The only Republican President in my lifetime to reduce the deficit was George HW Bush - the other three all ballooned deficits. And all Democratic Presidents in my lifetime have decreased the deficit.
You may be right that center-right Republicans *think* Democrats are irresponsible on the deficit, but anyone who does think that is dead wrong.
Aw it's just code for "takin' mah hard-earned tax dollers an' givin' 'em out in WELfare to them lazy inner-city (or immigrant) you-know-whos." It has nothing material to do with actual Federal expenditures, or the deficit, or even simple arithmetic.
Exactly. "Debt & deficit" is code for "free stuff for the [racist epithet]" and has been since Reagan. Every Republican campaign makes that argument explicitly or implicitly. Kevin is being disingenuous to argue otherwise.
As others have pointed out, Kevin seems to have close friends or family who are FOX-ified and feels like he has to represent them in a favorable light from time to time.
"free stuff for the..."
Meanwhile, after the teaspoons of "free stuff" for the undeserving needy and desperate, the federal government shovels out bushel baskets of "free stuff" for the wealthy, big ag, big oil, ... But that's okay! (right?)
Two sources of deficit: spending too much and taxing too little. Republicans are fine with the second, and not fine with the first, unless the spending is on the military. Most R presidents have cultivated a history in which their deficit contributions arise from taxing too little, which even if not actually true, means they get a pass.
I agree. I think the rest of it is spot one but not deficit spending. That's the reality of it, of course. But a lot of people still hold to the idea that its just dems who like to tax and spend.
I was planning to vote for Joe Biden next year, but when I found out more than 40% of Democrats choose to pray less than once a week, I realized how wrong I was. Donald Trump has my vote. Anyone with good conscience and a sense of sound policy will no doubt agree.
You’re kidding, right?
JH's snake can be a little dry sometimes, but yes, he is definitely kidding.
You must be kidding. I admit that was my first reaction to Kevin's point that "it's all about policy." Please. If he's serious, then I'm not sure what to say.
Even then, how does frequency of praying tie into "policy"? If there's a connection, I'm not equipped to see it.
But when I see that ~73% of Republicans claim to pray at least once a week, color me skeptical. This survey seems to be about people saying what they think they're supposed to say, not about actual behavior or beliefs.
See also polls about voting. Amazing how many more people vote than actual votes get counted.
when I see that ~73% of Republicans claim to pray at least once a week,
Of course they do. They put down their hard earned two bucks on the Super Lotto and pray. 73%
That should be 'snark', of course, and I see that when I type 'snark' on my phone it autocorrercts.
On Edit: Added to dictionary, of course.
I laughed when I saw snake. Oh autocorrect you snakey bastard.
"This survey seems to be about people saying what they think they're supposed to say, "
Surveys never tell you what people think. They tell you what people feel like saying at the time they were asked.
Picked up a T shirt at a Goodwill trough sale:
"Jesus is my Savior. Trump is my President."
Sarcasm is dead.
You are wrong about deficit spending and the debt. Republican presidents do not reduce spending, and they do reduce taxes. They are responsible for the biggest part of our debt.
Exactly. The Republican attack line is "tax 'n' spend Democrats." Their way, in contrast, is to just "spend and spend."
Not to be all pedantic, but I see a bunch of correlations and no consideration of causation.
By which I mean, do people become Republicans because they support these policies are do they support these policies because they are Republicans?
See: “I used to be a liberal democrat but now I am outraged by Chappaquiddick.” We have seen a number of instances of people leaving the Democratic party over a single issue and suddenly adopting all of the Republican rhetoric.
Oops messed up the joke. “I used to be a liberal democrat but after 9/11 I am outraged by Chappaquiddick.”
Lotta people got sucked in by the “let’s kick some terrorist butt” policy and stuck around for the prayer circles and tax cuts.
Were there Americans that didn't want to kick terrorist butt after 9/11?
The Vulcans who pulled back on Afghanistan and deployed to invade Iraq instead.
Well, if you paid attention to Fox News at the time you would have learned that the Democrats were all in agreement with Bin Laden and also too were weak-willed hippy peaceniks, and therefore the Republican party was the only real place where real American could really support a real terrorist ass-kicking policy.
Guess I wasn't watching. My recollection was that everyone wanted vengeance.
Notice I didn’t say the Democrats actually *were* weak-willed terrorist-supporting peaceniks, but that was certainly a lot of the propaganda being pushed by right wing outlets.
Which is really my point: if the Republicans use propaganda to smear Democrats on a hot-button item, and that propaganda results in an increase in people identifying as Republican, then those new Republicans are likely to shift their policy views to align with their new identity.
You make a very good point. I have an acquaintance who was a progressive Democrat for decades. At some point he decided he preferred the Republican position on one particular issue, and within a few years he had switched all the way over into the crazy lane on pretty much everything.
While there are policy differences and they are major, I think that there are two other factors:
1) Republican have a different set of facts than Dems. While Dems see transfer payments as helping the poor get out of poverty, Repubs see lazy people gaming the system.
2) Many of us Dems can be arrogant and self-righteous and it is alienating.
As if the Right isn't arrogant and self-righteous and alienating. I always see this applied to the Left like we need to be nicer and all will be well, while the Right (MTG, Boebert, Gaetz) gets a pass. I'm tired of it.
+1
Oh, of course they are, significantly worse. And it costs them politically. But I want us Democrats to win elections, and a little less self-indulgence and a little more self-control will help us do that in a country where 1 or 2 percentage points could mean the difference between normalcy and the Trumpocalypse in 2024, you know?
If you said 'Democrats' instead of 'Dems' I'd be less inclined to believe you're trolling.
It's not in any serious way about policy.
It may seem to be that way for the minority of Republicans who have been the people from whom the corporate management of the Republican party have been drawn, but they're the 1% of wingnuts.
For the people who vote for Republicans those policies are a fig leaf, essentially none of them could say anything serious about any of it for five seconds. What you get from them is motivated hate. Those 'policies' allow them hate somebody and hurt them and that's what they're voting for. If you could somehow eliminate the harm done to people and keep all those policies you'd never hear about them again, you would have to find some other group of helpless victims they could harm on some other pretext because that is the only thing they will ever vote for.
If Democrats were serious about winning over any number of the people who voted for Trump they would have to really work on motivating hate toward some population, perhaps billionaires. They may not be helpless victims but they're about as popular as airborne syphilis.
Wow. You are a very sheltered person.
And you're a very fucked-up person. Wanna stop with the insults?
Why are they called Proud Boys?
https://i.redd.it/vg0wyjhlbtmb1.png
I bet these guys would be a great market for diet watermelon, and value lozenges, which add value.
I looked at the first chart, thought “huh there’s a big difference between abortion for any reason and abortion for some reasons (which a lot more people agree with if the last few referenda explicitly about the topic have anything to say about it) and in any event, with every election cycle, it is becoming very clear (to women at least, if not senior citizen men in Orange County) that the choice is abortion for any reason and no abortion for any reason.” And given how misleading it was to look at a chart showing abortion for any reason and concluding that the country will vote against that… I’m not even going to look at Kevin’s other biased charts.
>> They think we're sexual libertines.<<
Yet another example of that Wilhoit quote in action.
Is praying less than once a week or never a policy now? How did I miss that bill getting introduced?
(Or are some of these "policy" questions about tribal signifiers?)
Not to get too much in the weeds but there is some chicken/egg in some of those questions, but even then, it seems the plurality on many questions weigh on Dems favor. That said this type of analysis discards nuance and it’s nuance where the political battlefield is where is at (messaging).
Is there any polling on the question “which party do you think is more likely to make you rich?” I suspect that’s the question that really matters.
Also worth noting Rs have been doing pretty badly in elections recently, especially in the popular vote. If the country is really 50-50 on lots of things, maybe the interesting question really is “why are the Rs so unpopular when it comes to actual voting?”
I am a liberal Satanist comsymp. I hate America passionately.
I used to be on board with that whole laundry list, and I still support it after a perfunctory, check-the-boxes fashion.
But now all I really care about is climate change, and not forcing Girl Scouts and cheerleaders to have their rapists' babies.
I agree with Kevin's broad point. I think too many Democrats want to think all Republicans are racist, or stupid ...maybe both. I think the aformentioned is a lazy analysis of the other side: there are some deep policy, and value differences.
bigotry and misogyny would be vales differences, right?
Yes and too many Republicans think all Democrats are unpatriotic Communist groomers. Kevin's list made sense in 2008 or 2012. McCain and Romney had policy differences with Obama. But bbleh is right. The "policy" at issue right now is belief in democracy. So, yes we all have deep value differences with anyone who votes for Trump.
The charts do not support the idea that policy differences are important. Kevin appears to have identified differences in 'values' and asked everyone to assume that this translates into differences in policy preferences.
The charts are just eye candy and provide literally no evidence that policy is important. Kevin even appears to admit this as his post contains zero policies but instead focuses entirely on broad values.
Kevins opinion is broadly shared (the consensus?) by the media and Democrat decision makers in DC.
We've seen these kind of policy outreach attempts many, many times by the Democrats. Broad tax cuts will appeal to the GOP leaners, market based private insurance, dismantling the welfare programs.....it all appeals in terms of policy......but it is all rejected by the GOP leaners because of values.
The policy based approach has never worked in the past, why pretend like this is a new insight that we need to start paying attention to?
Ten likes. Plus two. Yes, I think you've hit the nail on the head with this one. As an aside, I enjoy your general snark at the usual reprehensibles.
The United States is a representative democracy. Citizens should all have easy access to cast a vote and have it counted. Our citizens should receive a good education and opportunities to work good jobs for fair wages.We should all enjoy the protection of a competent, honest police force and when we obey the law we should be free of undue interference from law enforcement authorities. We should be secure and safe in our communities without fear of random violence.
We should expect to pay modest, fair taxes and public money should not be wasted, stolen, or used for corrupt purposes.
To the greatest extent possible, our laws should not interfere with our choices about where we live, who we love, and how we choose to express ourselves.
Our air and water should be clean, our food free of poison, and our resources managed with respect for our environment.
All of this sounds obvious doesn't it? Every Democratic policy given above (distorted by Fox News style framing) pursues these sensible aims.
If Donald Trump is the GOP candidate for president, he'll give lip service to as many of these ambitions as he must, and he'll pursue none. If he's elected again, he'll use his power to exact revenge on anyone who has tried to call him to account for his bold crimes
It's astounding to me that our country has come to a time when a candidate like Trump has any support at all. But here we are
"You may wonder what's so scary about that. The answer is pretty simple: they don't like Democratic policies"
I don't think this is really correct but, as usual, the real situation is sufficiently complex that few have articulated it; and it's difficult to discuss a situation that's outside the Overton window.
The two opposing points are
- Republican PARTY controlled by ideologues and
- DEIist's who control the universities, the media, and ever more businesses.
The first point is that these are different kinds of things.
The Republican PARTY is not "conservatives" and DEIists (or if we want the equivalent, "leftists") are not the Democratic PARTY.
The second point is these are different types of fears; though each is perfectly legitimate. The Republican Party is a party, and ultimately controls politics, not just in the short-term sense of this year's budget and whatever legislation is passed; but in the sense of serving to weaken liberal democratic norms. This matters, and people are right to be afraid about it.
BUT
DEIists are working very hard (and very successfully) to DESTROY the knowledge machine, the universities, that have created the world of wealth that we live in today, and that will be needed to solve the problems of the future. Few people (especially on the left) have any idea how astonishingly bad the situation is in the universities – it is FAR worse than in the Red Scare days. Even for STEM subjects, in many universities (and we are talking top tier research universities here, not Reed or Oberlin type places which, bless their hearts, WTF really cares if they live or die) the FIRST determinant of hiring new STEM faculty is essentially a loyalty oath – they have to get high marks on a DEI score card. If the marks are not high enough (and basically "Couldn't care less, I am interested in physics or chemistry or biology, not politics" means you don't score high enough) the applicant is rejected, regardless of their research or teaching qualifications. This is, it is not an exaggeration to say, basically the same as Germany ("Jewish Physics") or the Soviet Union (Lysenko).
The masses on the right are aware of this (many of them only vaguely, but very much directionally correct) in a way that the masses on the left are not. And they are (for good reason!) some combination of terrified and infuriated by it. German science never recovered after the Nazi's; a generation of this could do the same to the US.
Is this more of a threat that the Republicans? Well, it's a different TYPE of threat, but I think it's absolutely legitimate to be more worried about than to be worried about the political shenanigans, if you believe (as I do) that it's even harder to recreate a wrecked scientific infrastructure than it is to recreate a wrecked political infrastructure. Meaning that, yes, as usual the 90% masses operate on tribal affiliations, but subject to the analyses and interpretations of the 10% high-rung thinkers; and the 10% high-rung thinkers on the "right" are not crazy, or "hate-fueled" in their analysis that, as long as the DEI cancer is so virulent (to mix medical metaphors) in the academy, the media, and a growing degree of business, it's more important to hold your nose and stick with the Republicans, even Trump and his acolytes, than to exit the fray. It's a pretty terrible choice, much like choosing the left vs the right in early 1930s Germany, and decent people should respect that others may make the opposite choice from themselves.
And why are a crazy left vs a crazy right the only two alternatives? Well, that's the human condition. There are times when *both* sides would rather make the short-term tactical decision to ally with, rather than call out, the demons supposedly "on their side", and once that happens, it's game over.
And make no mistake, things are headed for catastrophe. The Republic was saved this time because the plotters were morons AND because there's still a critical mass of people who love the Republic.
BUT
The DEIists are working very hard to ensure that every "educated" person holds the US in contempt, thinks it's the most evil society in human history (in which case, why lift a finger to save it?) And the people who will actually have to do the saving (ie the policemen and soldiers of the Republic) may, in a decade, start to ask themselves a very similar question – why risk their lives to save something that's clearly (apparently) hated by the entire elite, when the alternative seems to be a replacement by a regime that has rather more respect for them and what they do...
And where do you, dear reader, stand in all this? Well, let me give you one parting thought to at least attempt to get your brain to function independently of the media viruses that have inhabited it. Left vs Right is NOT about economics, it's about what sort of society do you want.
The Left want a society with more entropy; the right a society with less entropy. This is the most important decision of our times – try to actually THINK about what you want seriously, and for more than 30 seconds. Higher entropy DOESN'T just mean you can't tell what pronouns a person uses; it also means constant unpredictability in everything from social relations to jobs. It means constant miscommunication because both parties don't understand each other and there are no shared values, no shared culture. It means a constant higher temperature of every interaction everywhere. And it means a much higher likelihood of everything burning down. Lower entropy does indeed mean less churn, less visible change. But it doesn't necessarily mean people are frozen in place, just that the RULES are frozen in place. People can ascend (or descend) by the rules, but people can at least predict where they and those they interact with will be in a generation. It means a more polite and less angry society. One that changes more slowly (and do you not want a slowdown?)
There are times when the right person can see hopelessness of the situation, take control, mostly unopposed, and change everything. Caesar, Napoleon, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler. You say that can't happen in a democracy. Wrong; the issue is not democracy, the issue is a widespread belief in the legitimacy of the system...
And you think that can't happen today. Well, might I suggest you read the story of Igor Strelkov... And don't read the wikipedia page, which kinda misses every aspect of what matters; read something like "85 Days in Slavyansk". And read it bearing in mind what I have said, not as about a supposed Russian pre-invasion of Crimea, but as a charismatic individual (with a group of crazy loyalists) seeing a situation that was ripe for exploitation and doing the exploiting. People like Strelkov don't live only in Russia...
@name99: I'm inclined to agree that DEIists often go too far and I hope the DEI fever breaks soon. But your comment on the whole comes off as hyperventilating paranoia. The scientific infrastructure is not about to collapse. I am a professor in higher-ed. There is indeed too much walking on eggshells for my liking. But that problem pales in significance to the problems that a second Trump term would pose for our democracy. The choice between Democrats and Republicans is not at all a hard choice.
I sometimes make some similar points:
"Few people (especially on the left) have any idea how astonishingly bad the situation is in the universities ... the FIRST determinant of hiring new STEM faculty is essentially a loyalty oath – they have to get high marks on a DEI score card."
All of this is accurate. And I am constantly and increasingly amazed how few voices there are on the Left calling out the identitarians. To his credit, Kevin does call them out sometimes. It's one of the things that keeps me reading his blog. But there are so few high profile (NYT columnist) voices like John McWhorter who will bravely assert in front of a huge and unabashedly Liberal audience that our Leftist emperors (Ibram Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, VP Kamala Harris, etc) have no clothes.
I have never seen anything like it. It just couldn't be more obvious that a character like Kendi is a charlatan espousing transparently, almost laughably, reductive ideas; and yet all of Liberal academia (ACADEMIA!) falls in line and adopts the fundamentalist catechism of anti-racism, DEI, and race essentialism.
Sure, there are some well-known aspects of human nature on display: peer pressure, herd mind mentality, etc. But even those explanations pale before the enormity of academia's utter collapse into the mindset of medieval inquisitors. We will spend generations trying to figure out what happened, but it hasn't quite sunk in yet. I believe that Leftist academia has already surpassed McCarthyism in its narrowminded and mean spirited focus on punishing wrongthink. But the population at large just hasn't absorbed it all yet.
"The masses on the right are aware of this (many of them only vaguely, but very much directionally correct) in a way that the masses on the left are not."
That's because there's almost no reporting of identitarian mania in Liberal media outlets. How can they "report" on it? They're also part of the cult. The WP, among others, has a page up on its website asserting its dedication to DEI. Same with NPR. Rather than fostering debate on these topics, these Liberal media outlets publicly announce that they will only promote one side of the argument. How can they still expect to be taken seriously?
To get out of this self-enclosed information bubble, it is helpful to check out (with all due caution) some sites like UnHerd, Spiked, or Quillette (I'm trying to avoid the more obviously partisan outlets like Fox). On Substack, some publications like Persuasion are also good. And the Heterodox Acadamy's blog provides great insight into what is actually going on. But if you aren't reading these and similar media outlets, you just are not getting much if any info on the astonishingly unprecedented and utterly inexplicable self-destruction of academia.
Mr. Drum has gone full liberal patriot.
https://www.liberalpatriot.com/
I have no idea who is right or what to do about it. For me, the status quo is fine. Democrats have gone all in on climate change, transgender, and making excuses for black and brown criminals. The argument seems to be that democrats must repudiate these policy positions in order to win elections. Do nothing, stop promising stuff, cut taxes, then still lose. ????
Yeesh Kevin, that's a big ass brush stroke. Your comment page is not the Democratic party (thank goodness). Biden won the primary because he was NOT buying into many of these things. The Republicans think he is because their 'news' media tell them that he is. But to add to your list, the few remaining independents or free-thinking Republicans who have had direct experience with local democrats who run everything have likely had direct experience with fiscal absurdities. There is no good cause that can't be fixed with higher taxes and a restrictive ordinance that determines what you can do with your property. Ban Airbnbs!--that'll fix homelessness!
Willful blindness is not restricted to moderate voters in the US, but that is where it is having its greatest effects.
If 35% of Republicans (and 70% of Democrats) favor abortion for "any reason" then that sounds like a policy position with incredibly broad support.
No. They think other people who commit crimes, namely non-white folks, should be prosecuted and put away for life and kicked out of the country.
It's more like, they think people should feel guilt about being sexually free. They, after all, commit the same amount of adultery, experimentation, etc.
Almost everything Republicans are against, is a projection. "I can't be a criminal, I'm a Republican!"
Almost all of the things that Kevin shows are essentially "social" matters, not economic. For those which do have an economic component, such as spending on welfare, the position is basically what is dictated by the party, not what people might want for themselves. Many people now ostensibly oppose "welfare" because a lot of it goes to non-whites, although they oppose cutting any programs that they benefit from.
Sure, the lower-income white people who vote for Trump are concerned with policy, but it's culture-war policy. It has always been Republican policy to support religious interests, and since the civil-rights era the party has opposed equal rights for non-whites. Goldwater and Reagan opposed the Civil Rights and Voting Acts, and that precipitated the flight of Southerners and some others to the Republican party. Before that white Southerners generally supported Democratic economic policies.
The support for someone as egregiously unqualified as Trump does not come from reasoned positions on economic or even real social matters. It is an instinctive tribal reaction to the threat of the end of White Christian Supremacy. This causes people to become irrational and lose touch with reality.
Of course many higher-income people support the main Republican policies of tax cuts for the rich and deregulation of business and finance from self-interest.
I'm a bit late to this, but this is very un-Kevin. I come to this site to get more nuanced precise and incisive commentary using data with rational analysis. This post is not that at all. It's broad brushed, and using specious data. I agree that Republican voters, especially hard core tribalists *think* these things about Democrats. But any close examination of historical data on the policies mentioned would blow holes throughout that perception. In fact, this is JUST the kind of analysis Kevin would ordinarily drive a truck through.
It's astonishing to me that Kevin actually tried to analyze why non-foolish people would vote for Trump, without even once mentioning white supremacy.
Gun permits is not "taking away our guns".