Why Trump Won: A Narrative of Others Cutting in Line

Metaphor of How the World Works.   People like us are getting screwed and we resent it.

My effort to get up close to the candidates and their audiences in the campaign gave me some insights I would not have received from TV.

1.  Trump crowds were enthusiastic.  Trump was with the crowd, fed off it, and was getting policy insight from them.

2.  Hillary was not connecting.  Even her base voters were not really fired up, except for women who projected their own struggles onto Hillary and for whom she was an example of womanhood empowered at long last.

3.  Trump's support was tribal, not based on details of policy.  Indeed his tribal cohort was more material and cohesive than was Hillary's.   White women, religious people, and Republicans voted with Trump. 

South Carolina Tea Party Audience

An ongoing premise of this blog is that humans make political decisions based on intuition and identification and rarely on objective rational judgement based on calculated self interest.   

People have narratives in their minds about how the world works.  It is why a woman who has used Planned Parenthood in her young adulthood and who has two children after a long marriage can stand up and cheer when a politician says he will defund Planned Parenthood.   It is why a man who regularly shops at Walmart will cheer at the thought that we will put a tariff on goods manufactured from China.  

Tea Party Patriot, in costume

The most reliable applause lines in the campaign speeches of Republican candidates were criticism of Obamaphones.     

There was a story widely circulated that Obama arranged for low income people to get free phones at taxpayer expense.  The following email circulated in a chain mail is a typical example of the genre.

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Email circulated expressing resentment over Obamaphones

In fact, the program was initiated under President Reagan in 1984 and expanded under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.   The intent was to lower taxpayer costs by giving the lowest  income people way to access the police and emergency services as well as ways for service agencies to contact them.  The notion that the program serves a public safety need rather than an entitlement giveaway, and that it was initiated by Reagan creates complications resolved by calling them "Obamaphones."

Now the moral direction is clear.  They are a giveaway to the undeserving. 

Tea Party Convention

I don't doubt that there are policy pros and cons for the distribution of these phones, but the facts and reality are completely irrelevant.   What is relevant is how powerfully the Obamaphone narrative struck a deep chord.  It made sense to people and a vast number of people thought it was an outrage when they associated it with Obama.  It clicked.  This is what is wrong with America.  The undeserving are getting stuff at our expense.  Hard work is disrespected and benefits are going to people who are not one of us.   

This blog has mentioned this several times over the past year as I watched audiences respond to the Obamaphone outrage.  They stood up and cheered wildly.

Poster Villain for what is wrong with America

A YouTube video went viral and I received multiple suggestions from politically conservative friends that I watch this video.   A aggressive black woman praises her Obamaphone and urges people to support Obama.   Click Here

Sociologist Arlie Russell Hothschild outlined a more general narrative and metaphor of American politics.  Her close attention to the voices of Tea Party members allowed her to hear the underlying narrative, something not captured by data.    I heard the same thing but Hothschild says it so elegantly I will simply quote her at length.

Democrats and Progressives who wonder why working class Democrats abandoned the party, particularly in regions where manufacturing jobs were conspicuously leaving need to review and integrate this understanding of America into their mindsets.  

Progressive language and policy can deal with and use this mindset by co-opting it.  What it cannot do an win electoral vote victories is ignore it or define it as racism.   The notion of unjust privilege is an appeal to the sense of morality and fairness that touches nearly all Americans.   Fairness is not a conservative value.  It is a universal value.  A great many voters thought they were being treated unfairly and they resented it and they voted for a person who they thought saw things their way.

Arlie Russell Hothschild:

       You are standing in a long line leading up a hill, as in a pilgrimage, patient but weary. You are in the middle of this line, along with others who are also white, older, Christian, native-born, and predominantly male, some with college degrees, some not. At the crest of the hill is the American Dream, the goal of everyone waiting in line, a standard of living higher than that your parents enjoyed. Many behind you in line are people of color—poor, young and old, mainly without college degrees. You wish them well, but your attention is trained on those ahead of you. And now you notice the line isn’t moving. In fact, is it moving backward?

      You’ve suffered. You’ve had marriage problems, and you are helping out a troubled sibling and an ill co-worker. Your church has seen you through hard times. You’ve shown strong character, and the American Dream is a badge of moral honor, as you see it, for that.

      But look! Some people are coming from behind and cutting in line ahead of you! As they cut in, you are being moved back. How can they just do that? You’re following the rules. They aren’t. Who are they? They are black. They are brown. They are career-driven women, helped by Affirmative Action programs.

      The liberal government wants you to believe they have a right to cut ahead. You’ve heard stories of oppressed blacks, dominated women, weary immigrants, closeted gays, desperate Syrian refugees. But at some point, you say to yourself, we have to build a wall against more sympathy. You feel like a refugee yourself.

      You’re a compassionate person. But now you’ve been asked to extend your sympathy to all the people who have cut in line ahead of you. And who’s supervising the line? It’s a black man whose middle name is Hussein. He’s waving the line cutters on. He’s on their side. He’s their president, not yours. What’s more, all the many things the federal government does to help them don’t help you. Should the government really help anyone? Beyond that, from ahead in line, you hear people calling you insulting names: “Crazy redneck!” “White trash!” “Ignorant southern Bible-thumper!” You don’t recognize yourself in how others see you. You are a stranger in your own land. Who recognizes this?

        Arlie Russell Hothschild:   Click here for the full article