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| Source:Al Jazeera- take on the 2016 American presidential election. |
"Hillary Clinton is maintaining her lead over Donald Trump, with one new poll showing her seven points ahead.
But one area where Trump is holding his own is among white people, particularly men, who don't have a university degree.
Al Jazeera's John Hendren reports on a group that has become the core of Trump’s support."
From Al Jazeera
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| Source:Democracy Journal- American working class voters for Donald Trump. |
When you think of the Republican Party generally you think of country club Republicans, people who tend to be very conservative when it comes to economic policy and believing in low taxes and low regulations, but tend to be moderate to tolerant on social issues, perhaps even neutral. And then there's another faction of Republicans the Christian-Right. Anglo-Saxon Southern working class Protestants, who looks at politics especially social issues from their very conservative if not theocratic religious values.
And there's their still solid, but no longer dominant conservative-libertarian base that came to power in the GOP thanks to Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and others. But there's another base in the GOP that use to be a solid part of the Democratic Party. The so-called Reagan Democrats that first voted overwhelmingly for Richard Nixon in 1968 and 72 and then later Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 84. European ethnic Catholics people of Eastern European, as well as Irish background, who tend to be Midwest and working class.
Reagan Democrats are now Trump Republicans. People who tend to be blue-collar, Catholics, as well as Protestants, who tend to have Anglo, as well as Irish and Slavic backgrounds. Who come from working class areas of the Southeast and Midwest, who are very conservative, but in a traditionalist and nationalistic and religious sense. (Not so much political) who came of age when their people (so to speak) were in charge in America. Where only needed a high school diploma earn a middle-income and live well. Where women weren't expected to work. Where you stood out if you didn't go to church every week.
People who hang out at sports bars, bowling allies, drink beer and not wine. Who now live in a country where they're becoming a minority if not are already there. And are seeing their wages and economic security decline in an era where education is the key to being successful in America. Not just a high school diploma and a little college perhaps at a community college, but a college degree and then re-training later in life in order to be successful.
It's not just Trump Republicans, working class religious conservative Caucasians who've been left behind in the New America. But they're the voters that Donald Trump represents. Whose been running on this theory that if he can dominate the Caucasian working class in America in the votes, he'll win the presidency without having to appeal to anyone else. The polling and numbers don't show that when you look at the fact that Donald Trump's base is somewhere around 35-42% depending on the polls.
But that is what he believes he needs and all he needs to be the next President of the United States. Essentially blue-collar Tea Party Republicans, who oppose free trade, immigration, internationalism, integration and even equal rights. The so-called Alt-Right in the Republican Party that is now the new term for Far-Right Nationalists. Who again believe there America is disappearing and their America is the 1940s, (to be frank about it). When women and ethnic and racial minorities, were not prevalent in America.
Whatever you think of Donald Trump, he's not a dumb man. He even has political skills and real sense of politics and what he can do and how to appeal to his own base. Which is by speaking their game even though he represents nothing as far as what this community represents in lifestyle and everything else, other than a similar complexion. But he's getting away with it at least in the sense that he's never lost this lost place in America, because they've been losing and have been falling behind for decades now as the New America has become prevalent and we're now a very diverse country ethnically and racially and where higher education post-high school is the key to how well you'll do in this country economically.
The Lost America now wants that country back the country they grew up in, a country that overwhelmingly looks and thinks the way they do and they want their lifestyles back and those blue-collar jobs back that funded their lifestyles. And they see Donald Trump as their savior even as he goes down in a landslide to Hillary Clinton.
