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[RedKing]

What MSH said. The rural South used to be fine with government programs providing for the common man, it was when they started providing for the common Negro as well that things got dicey.
Shit, look at how popular Huey Long was, and he was a redistributionist big-government socialist that makes Sanders look like a robber baron by comparison.

[Reelya]

I definitely think we do need to have a deeper understanding of racism beyond "you is a wrongthinker", which is how a lot of people lay it out.

One article point out how some Silicon valley guy was slapped on the back as "brave" because he came out on twitter going "racism bad yo, hire more diversity". But the point is, that's the expected sounds to come out of your mouth when you flap your lips and happen to exist in that particular culture. Saying something that you're pre-aware will make you look good to your peers and thus be retweeted and get back-slapping praise, is not brave. Bravery is finding something you believe that your peers won't agree with, then saying that.

So, it's a good thing that there are demographics where anti-racism is the norm. But it's not objective proof that you're a better person than someone who grew up in a racist culture who also repeats expected norms of his/her culture. Merely repeating social norms is therefore not necessarily evidence of having good ethics, but we associate our groups ethics as the correct ethics, other groups ethics as the wrongthinker ethics.

[mainiac]

But the republican base isn't poor and rural and left behind by the 21st century.  They are rich suburbanites and white bible thumping bigots.

Know who is a Senator from the state with the most rural voters?  Bernie Sanders.

But let's look at a conservative rural state: http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/MT/president/

The median household income in the US in 2012 was about 50k.  Obama lost voters in households with less then the median income by 5 points.  He lost voters in households with more then the median income by 20 points.  More then half of Montana voters were in above median income households.

Montana isn't some poor downtrodden set location for the Grape of Wrath.  It is just a place with a lot of the kinds of religion that make people republican and none of the skin colors that make people democrats.

You can actually see the urban rural divide a lot more clearly in the democratic primary.  You have Clinton who appeals to constituencies that Democrats run up the score in.  Then you have Bernie Sanders who appeals to the constituencies that aren't really democratic or republican.  Rural is one of those, another is college educated white people.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Incidentally, despite people portraying Huey Long as both antisemetic and antiblack, there is no proof for either. The only thing for antisemitism is having known Charles Coughlan, which is spurious. Lots of people today have met David Duke, that doesn't mean they believe what he does. He also tried with limited success to actually make black and white schools have an equal curriculum, which given that this happened multiple decades before desegregation must have been dangerous as fuck.

I definitely think we do need to have a deeper understanding of racism beyond "you is a wrongthinker", which is how a lot of people lay it out.

One article point out how some Silicon valley guy was slapped on the back as "brave" because he came out on twitter going "racism bad yo, hire more diversity". But the point is, for his in-group that's the expected thing to say. It's neither particularly "brave" nor all that clever. Basically he opened his mouth and the expected sounds came out for his social sect, doesn't make him better than anyone else.

In my view, the beliefs of individuals are irrelevant. Lots of people have this image in their minds that if we just debate down/beat down every racist person in America, we'll have less racism.

Yeah...no. There are three-hundred million people in this country, and maybe about a tenth of one percent of those people have the sharpened self-awareness and humility necessary to change their minds because they lost a debate. All of the arguments in favor of tolerance for LGBT have existed for a long, long time. That isn't why there's more tolerance now. The recorded largest reason why is because people know friends or family who came out. Experiences, not arguments, alter people's beliefs. Seek trends on the large scale.
This is an aside, but according to Gallup in 1945 10% of Americans supported legalizing same-sex marriage. I'd like to know what the deal was with that 10%. Obviously some of them were personally affected, but given the number of people in the modern era who are bigoted because of denying their sexuality I'm not so sure that makes up this whole group. Just an interesting thing.

Know who is a Senator from the state with the most rural voters?  Bernie Sanders.

Vermont is also generally wealthy and has a functional local government. The connection between these things and being the people who voted in Sanders is real.

The median household income in the US in 2012 was about 50k.  Obama lost voters in households with less then the median income by 5 points.  He lost voters in households with more then the median income by 20 points.  More then half of Montana voters were in above median income households.

If the Dems had a good rural program they should expect to win the households with less than median income by 45 points. There's no good reason for the poor vote to be something the Dems should have to fight for.

This cannot reasonably be boiled down to religion and racism. People are...rational is the wrong word. They do what's enticing to them. I don't think living outside cities exposes people to bigotry particles, and I definitely don't think such a rag-tag ideology can hold itself up without professional curating. Our concious thoughts spin out of more basic things, common experience building ideas.

[SalmonGod]

I was rather impressed with this Cracked article.

TLDR; it's a lashing out.  They don't really think Trump represents their interests or will do a good job.  But he does represent their anger, because he gets a reaction from the people they see as their adversaries.  He gets up on stage, and they get to cheer as the Democrats and the left lose their shit over him.  In today's political world, where few people feel there's anyone out there that truly represents them, that's good enough.

It got me thinking... I've already been expecting that telecommuting will eventually have a major impact on population density and cost of living, as people find they're more often able to move further out to where cost of living is cheaper, and work from home.  Now I'm hoping that will also have a big impact on politics, as opportunity spreads out from population centers, and rural areas aren't as motivated to lash out in desperate anger.  Heck, I wonder if we could even see a new type of labor migration analogous to global outsourcing, but domestic... with data and tech-oriented businesses looking to hire more labor in areas with lower cost-of-living, allowing them to justify lower pay.

[smjjames]

Further proof that Trump is a liberal in disguise.

Just another of his flip flops really. Wouldn't be surprised if he suddenly pivots hard and can pivot if he really wanted to.

[misko27]

Incidentally, despite people portraying Huey Long as both antisemetic and antiblack, there is no proof for either. The only thing for antisemitism is having known Charles Coughlan, which is spurious. Lots of people today have met David Duke, that doesn't mean they believe what he does. He also tried with limited success to actually make black and white schools have an equal curriculum, which given that this happened multiple decades before desegregation must have been dangerous as fuck.

I tell you literally the only thing I know about Huey Long is he leads one of the factions in the Second American Civil War in Kaiserreich, and that his assassination is a prerequisite for preventing the war.

[mainiac]

This is an aside, but according to Gallup in 1945 10% of Americans supported legalizing same-sex marriage. I'd like to know what the deal was with that 10%.

That is very interesting.

All of the arguments in favor of tolerance for LGBT have existed for a long, long time. That isn't why there's more tolerance now.

I heard from multiple people that they changed their mind because they never heard a good argument against gay marriage.

which given that this happened multiple decades before desegregation must have been dangerous as fuck.

Yeah it probably was dangerous in Louisiana (a state whose populace was willing to cast their votes with bullets) but it is worth nothing that racism wasn't just a uniform block before the 50s.   In 1940, Wendell Wilkie ran on an integration platform.  You had superman fighting the KKK on the radio.  Movies like this existed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUHzkZpUCTA

They tell me that a Chinese archaeological expedition is digging up the body of George Washington in exchange.

The sad thing about Key Luke's career is that he started out as a protagonist breaking stereotypes and he ended up the living embodiment of them.

Sorry what was my point?  Oh yeah, that's a great movie.

I was rather impressed with this Cracked article.

I'm more impressed with this 538 article: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/
And this vox article: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/15/13286498/donald-trump-voters-race-economic-anxiety

UCLA's Michael Tesler has found that support for Trump in the primaries strongly correlated with respondents' racial resentment, as measured by survey data

A major study from Gallup's Jonathan Rothwell confirmed this. Trump support was correlated with higher, not lower, income, both among the population as a whole and among white people.

[RedKing]

Montana also isn't quite your archetypical red state. Yes, it has a lot of that "rugged Rocky Mountain small-government libertarian" thing going on, and lots of mineral rights and Native American rights issues, but they're also generally pro-environment in Big Sky Country. They had a popular Democratic governor in Brian Schweitzer who tore ExxonMobil a new one when there was a pipeline spill in the Yellowstone River. They currently have a Democratic governor as well. If anything, I'd say Montana compares somewhat to Arkansas -- mostly rural, but not dyed blood-red. It's also not that poor of a state (notwithstanding the reservations).

Now, if you can find similar numbers showing the bulk of GOP support coming from the rich in say, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Idaho -- then you've got a solid argument.


EDIT: And while exit poll data is available for MS, and does show higher support for Romney among the >$100K crowd, you have to question how much income is just a stand-in for race in a place like Ole Miss. I'd be surprised if there's more than 10 black people in the whole state of Mississippi who make >$100K.

[SalmonGod]

As far as I'm aware, his support is mostly rural in Indiana, also.  Though I've never looked for data on that.  Just based on what I mostly see from rural hoosiers.

[mainiac]

Oklahoma, Mississippi and Idaho -- then you've got a solid argument.

Well CNN doesn't have the exit polls for Oklahoma or Idaho but Obama won Mississippi voters in below median income households by 9 points while he lost high income households by 44 points.
http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/MS/president/

It's also interesting that Obama won everyone who isn't "White Born Again Christian" by a 48% margin.  But he lost White Born Again Christians by a 90% margin.  So Obama seems to have not done too badly among the 9% of the state that is white but not Born Again.

As far as I'm aware, his support is mostly rural in Indiana, also.  Though I've never looked for data on that.  Just based on what I mostly see from rural hoosiers.

Yes, rural voters are more conservative.  They are whiter, older, more religious and more likely to be retired with money.

[Reelya]

That Cracked article did indeed raise some good food for thought. In relation to what I wrote before, we do tend to label Trump voters as wrongthinkers without looking further into the subject. And when you look at the demographics it does look a lot like city vs country. So it does take on an ingroup/outgroup type dynamic. And ironically, that's not a whole lot different to how racism works. Except it's dividing by demographics / social class rather than skin color.

[RedKing]

Oklahoma, Mississippi and Idaho -- then you've got a solid argument.

Well CNN doesn't have the exit polls for Oklahoma or Idaho but Obama won Mississippi voters in below median income households by 9 points while he lost high income households by 44 points.
http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/MS/president/

It's also interesting that Obama won everyone who isn't "White Born Again Christian" by a 48% margin.  But he lost White Born Again Christians by a 90% margin.  So Obama seems to have not done too badly among the 9% of the state that is white but not Born Again.

But the question is which variable is paramount, and which are merely correlated?
Or, put another way (and you'd have to have access to original data of these exit polls to really determine it), which has the most significant p-value in predicting voter behavior: age, religion, urban/rural, income, education, or party ID?

And because a number of those cluster in correlated groups, it's not easy to pick out.

[mainiac]

In relation to what I wrote before, we do tend to label Trump voters as wrongthinkers without looking further into the subject.

But that's not what the polls say.  What you are saying in empirically wrong.  Rural voters in places like Vermont and Minnesota or eastern Maryland aren't showing the patterns you are talking about.  Trump voters in the primaries were very wealthy.

It's like Dylan Mathews wrote in the very good Vox article.  Liberals are raised being taught that racism is wrong.  So because it's wrong they are sensitive to call people racists.

And because a number of those cluster in correlated groups, it's not easy to pick out.

Normally it would be hard but because the data is so lopsided it's easy in this particular case.

In Mississippi being WBAE makes you vote Romney.  Being black makes you vote Obama.  For the remaining 9% of the population we dont have enough data to get at the nitty gritty.

[Reelya]

You're cherry picking sources, Mainiac.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/who-are-donald-trumps-supporters-really/471714/

The second Trump-voter story focused on the typical demographic breakdowns: gender, race, and age. Back in December, a Washington Post analysis found that Trump's support skewed male, white, and poor. The male-female gap was 19 percentage points (47 percent support among men vs. 28 percent among women). He won a whopping 50 percent of voters making less than $50,000, 18 percentage points ahead of his support with those who earned more than that amount.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/dissecting-donald-trumps-support/499739/

The majority of voters supporting Trump are white people who didn't graduate college. But those voters account for only about a third of Clinton's base.

Yeah, all these rich people who skipped college.

http://www.people-press.org/2016/07/07/2-voter-general-election-preferences/

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Non-college Trump supporters are 60% of his base. 40% went to college. Post-grad people are 2:1 for Clinton, not Trump.

These are from the top three search results for "demographics of trump voters". How far down in the results do I have to go to find the definitive ones that agree with you?