Understanding the Trump Coalition

Historians and political scientists will study Donald Trump’s 2016 Electoral College victory for years to come and I encourage you to read the works of established professionals. In the meantime, here’s armchair analysis from a Midwestern-bred stand-up comedian that enjoys talking politics with a wide variety of people.

In my view, the primary thing liberals need to understand is, Donald Trump represents a diverse coalition rather than the triumph of a coherent political ideology. When Donald Trump takes two or three different positions on an particular issue, he is often speaking to these different audiences. Here are some basic categories of Trump supporters that I’ve observed in my travels across the country and social media:

1. People that want to be part of something...

2. Conservatives that feel trapped by the two-party system...

3. People with very specific social grievances...

5. People that wish they had a lot of money...

6. People that believe what they hear (or at least want to)...

7. Bad, scary and dangerous people...

...Many liberal pundits created simplistic labels to explain the Trump phenomenon, but the reality is much more complicated. If the Democratic Party hopes to beat a celebrity who represents so many different things to different people, they need to tailor a message that speaks to most of them. Here’s a simple one:

Donald Trump is exploiting you for his own personal gain.

Understanding the Trump Coalition | HuffPost



Well the sums it up. :lol:

Yeah...it's always a good idea to base your opinion on things a comedian says. :roll:

LOL!!

(it CAN be good for a laugh, though)

Mycroft said:

Yeah...it's always a good idea to base your opinion on things a comedian says. :roll:

LOL!!

(it CAN be good for a laugh, though)

Click to expand...

Time asks Trump Organization to remove fake cover from golf clubs


Time magazine has asked the Trump Organization to remove copies of a fake cover of President Trump that were on display at the company’s golf clubs, The Washington Post reported Tuesday afternoon.

The request came after the newspaper reported that at least four Trump-branded golf clubs had displayed a fake Time magazine cover that depicted Trump with the headline “Donald Trump: The ‘Apprentice’ is a television smash!”

The cover, dated March 1, 2009, was never published by the magazine at any point, a spokeswoman for Time confirmed.

“I can confirm that this is not a real TIME cover,” Kerri Chyka wrote to the Post in an email.

Time asks Trump Organization to remove fake cover from golf clubs | TheHill



So in your World ... is this Fake News or Real News? :mrgreen:

Cigar said:

Historians and political scientists will study Donald Trump’s 2016 Electoral College victory for years to come and I encourage you to read the works of established professionals. In the meantime, here’s armchair analysis from a Midwestern-bred stand-up comedian that enjoys talking politics with a wide variety of people.

In my view, the primary thing liberals need to understand is, Donald Trump represents a diverse coalition rather than the triumph of a coherent political ideology. When Donald Trump takes two or three different positions on an particular issue, he is often speaking to these different audiences. Here are some basic categories of Trump supporters that I’ve observed in my travels across the country and social media:

1. People that want to be part of something...

2. Conservatives that feel trapped by the two-party system...

3. People with very specific social grievances...

5. People that wish they had a lot of money...

6. People that believe what they hear (or at least want to)...

7. Bad, scary and dangerous people...

...Many liberal pundits created simplistic labels to explain the Trump phenomenon, but the reality is much more complicated. If the Democratic Party hopes to beat a celebrity who represents so many different things to different people, they need to tailor a message that speaks to most of them. Here’s a simple one:

Donald Trump is exploiting you for his own personal gain.

Understanding the Trump Coalition | HuffPost



Well the sums it up. :lol:

Click to expand...

I like number 4

katzgar said:

I like number 4

Click to expand...

I like number 8

Cigar said:

Historians and political scientists will study Donald Trump’s 2016 Electoral College victory for years to come and I encourage you to read the works of established professionals. In the meantime, here’s armchair analysis from a Midwestern-bred stand-up comedian that enjoys talking politics with a wide variety of people.

In my view, the primary thing liberals need to understand is, Donald Trump represents a diverse coalition rather than the triumph of a coherent political ideology. When Donald Trump takes two or three different positions on an particular issue, he is often speaking to these different audiences. Here are some basic categories of Trump supporters that I’ve observed in my travels across the country and social media:

1. People that want to be part of something...

2. Conservatives that feel trapped by the two-party system...

3. People with very specific social grievances...

5. People that wish they had a lot of money...

6. People that believe what they hear (or at least want to)...

7. Bad, scary and dangerous people...

...Many liberal pundits created simplistic labels to explain the Trump phenomenon, but the reality is much more complicated. If the Democratic Party hopes to beat a celebrity who represents so many different things to different people, they need to tailor a message that speaks to most of them. Here’s a simple one:

Donald Trump is exploiting you for his own personal gain.

Understanding the Trump Coalition | HuffPost



Well the sums it up. :lol:

Click to expand...

I don't think I disagee, but I'm not totally sure that I agree. It's certainly true that Trump is exploiting people for his own gain (Just look at his hotels being used for government functions), it's certainly true that he formed a mismosh coalition not based in any way whatsoever on an ideology but instead based on grievances and mutual dissatisfaction. But his rise was pretty complex, and so there may still be even more.

I think the leading-order contributions to his success are:

1.) The DNC appearing to be biased during the primaries and presented themselves as a corrupt, pro-Wall St, pro-consolidation of political power, pro-status quo party lead to people wanting to give them a comeuppance or at least made them not want to be associated with the Democratic party. Hillary could have offset this by having an actual vision and a message. She chose a campaign focused on Trump, so these issues dominated the public perception of her (particularly when combined with the FBI email investigation) and she never bothered to deflect them.

2.) Trump found people's grievances and avoided discussing them together enough to make them contradictions; he made an art out of being vague and using soft contradictions. He just got people to vent about what was frustrating them, a lot of it was the misdirection and transference that Fox News and Breitbart fed to them. And every time people got together and showed their anger, the more it made discontent people feel excitement for supporting Donald Trump. Because they were joining with other people who they felt "gets it" and also, "Trump gets it" in terms of their problems. At least if they weren't going to get what they wanted, they could stop the [whatever group, organization, or people they thought were responsible for their problems] from getting what they wanted. All of this translated into energy behind Trump, which mattered in all the right places.

3.) Similarly, I think some people rationalized that putting Trump into the Oval Office would bring these powerful people and special interests back to the bargaining table next time around. That's the manner in which the logic behind Trump voters does, sort of, make sense (at least in that moment). I think this was the group of people who hated Trump, hated what he stood for, and then voted for him, because they viewed the 2016 election as a game of chicken. The US political establishment sent them crap candidates, and the establishment clearly wanted them to choose the one that would not benefit themselves and would continue to benefit the establishment. So people voted that everyone would lose this election, and remind the establishment to put up candidates next time that were legitimately interested in the broader concerns of Americans. It remains to be seen if that gamble will actually work; however, I suspect that a large number of people had some variant of this thought running around in their heads as they sat in the poll booth.


After that, I think we can talk about secondary effects, like the rise of right-wing movements, Trump's more effective use of data consultant groups, sexism against Hillary, third-parties, etc.

Cigar said:

Time asks Trump Organization to remove fake cover from golf clubs


Time magazine has asked the Trump Organization to remove copies of a fake cover of President Trump that were on display at the company’s golf clubs, The Washington Post reported Tuesday afternoon.

The request came after the newspaper reported that at least four Trump-branded golf clubs had displayed a fake Time magazine cover that depicted Trump with the headline “Donald Trump: The ‘Apprentice’ is a television smash!”

The cover, dated March 1, 2009, was never published by the magazine at any point, a spokeswoman for Time confirmed.

“I can confirm that this is not a real TIME cover,” Kerri Chyka wrote to the Post in an email.

Time asks Trump Organization to remove fake cover from golf clubs | TheHill



So in your World ... is this Fake News or Real News? :mrgreen:

Click to expand...

It's unimportant news.

Oh...I'm sure it's important to someone...just not to me. shrug... If Time has their panties in a bunch about these "magazine covers", that's their problem. To me...it's "meh".

Mycroft said:

It's unimportant news.

Oh...I'm sure it's important to someone...just not to me. shrug... If Time has their panties in a bunch about these "magazine covers", that's their problem. To me...it's "meh".

Click to expand...

Let's just ignore the Fact that he LIES 10x a Day :lamo

Cigar said:

Let's just ignore the Fact that he LIES 10x a Day :lamo

Click to expand...

I don't see such exaggerations, hyperbole and spin as fact.

Mycroft said:

I don't see such exaggerations, hyperbole and spin as fact.

Click to expand...

I would't expect you to.

It's neither fake news or real news.

It's an opinion piece and nothing more.

Cigar said:

Historians and political scientists will study Donald Trump’s 2016 Electoral College victory for years to come and I encourage you to read the works of established professionals. In the meantime, here’s armchair analysis from a Midwestern-bred stand-up comedian that enjoys talking politics with a wide variety of people.

In my view, the primary thing liberals need to understand is, Donald Trump represents a diverse coalition rather than the triumph of a coherent political ideology. When Donald Trump takes two or three different positions on an particular issue, he is often speaking to these different audiences. Here are some basic categories of Trump supporters that I’ve observed in my travels across the country and social media:

1. People that want to be part of something...

2. Conservatives that feel trapped by the two-party system...

3. People with very specific social grievances...

5. People that wish they had a lot of money...

6. People that believe what they hear (or at least want to)...

7. Bad, scary and dangerous people...

...Many liberal pundits created simplistic labels to explain the Trump phenomenon, but the reality is much more complicated. If the Democratic Party hopes to beat a celebrity who represents so many different things to different people, they need to tailor a message that speaks to most of them. Here’s a simple one:

Donald Trump is exploiting you for his own personal gain.

Understanding the Trump Coalition | HuffPost



Well the sums it up. :lol:

Click to expand...

The democratic party would do well to examine their own exploiting of us for their own gain. The ugly reality is that Wall Street, the "job creator" class and the substantial people have two parties from which to choose, and "the people" have none.

Mycroft said:

It's unimportant news.

Oh...I'm sure it's important to someone...just not to me. shrug... If Time has their panties in a bunch about these "magazine covers", that's their problem. To me...it's "meh".

Click to expand...

being anti cheating or anti fake was never trumps strong suit

katzgar said:

being anti cheating or anti fake was never trumps strong suit

Click to expand...

You must not know about Trump's tweets or the constant Mainstream Media attention to them if you think he's not anti-fake...especially when it comes to news.

Anti-cheating??? shrug... I'd say the Democrats have a lock on cheating, considering the way they passed Obamacare. So yeah...Trump is probably anti-cheating as well.

Mycroft said:

You must not know about Trump's tweets or the constant Mainstream Media attention to them if you think he's not anti-fake...especially when it comes to news.

Anti-cheating??? shrug... I'd say the Democrats have a lock on cheating, considering the way they passed Obamacare. So yeah...Trump is probably anti-cheating as well.

Click to expand...

more fake world. all of his bankruptcies and infidelities are public record you know.

katzgar said:

more fake world. all of his bankruptcies and infidelities are public record you know.

Click to expand...

Oh...you think anyone who has a bankruptcy is a cheat?

I'm thinking a lot of people would disagree with you...and that's not even mentioning the law.

Mycroft said:

Oh...you think anyone who has a bankruptcy is a cheat?

I'm thinking a lot of people would disagree with you...and that's not even mentioning the law.

Click to expand...

Obviously bankruptcies are legal but yeah treating other people is cheating other people legal or no

katzgar said:

Obviously bankruptcies are legal but yeah treating other people is cheating other people legal or no

Click to expand...

As I said...a lot of people...not to mention the law...would disagree with you. But hey...if Trump does it, it's GOT to be bad, right?

I saw some glaring issues of bias with regards some of the specifics of his arguments, but his overall argument was a reasonable one in terms of trying to categories much of Trump's appeal and "base". Though I found THIS one far more insightful, though it talks more about the phenomena that led to his election more so than the coalition itself.

I wonder what the people who are now worshiping Trump, thought of him 10 years ago?

You know, when he was a Democrat ...