Trump's Silent Supporters

Trump is on the outs with Republican leadership, but he has secret admirers: voters. 

Donald Trump's has generally acceptable and popular policy positions.   What is special about Trump is style: what he says and how he says it.

Trump is communicating is that he understands white racial resentment over the changes happening in America.   He is on the side of "regular Americans" and he says so.    That is what gives him problems, and what gives him strength.

Republican leadership opposes a higher federal minimum wage;  GOP voters sort of like minimum wage and Trump agrees.

Republican leadership wants to take on new fights in the Middle East; GOP voters are tired of more wars and Trump says America First.

Republican leadership wants lower taxes on job creator donors; GOP voters think rich people got away with murder and want the party to look after them and Trump agrees.

Republican leadership opposes government involvement in health care including allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices; GOP voters actually like their Medicare and would appreciate lower drug prices and Trump agrees.

Republican leadership wants free trade; GOP voters think free trade puts Americans in direct wage competition with low wage countries and that it helps big businesses but not Americans, and Trump agrees with voters.

Republican leadership wants immigration and wants to reach out to Hispanics and Asians to "expand the GOP tent".   Trump opposes it, calls it "political correctness", and Trump is in sync with the voters.

Trump Meet Ryan today

The split between Trump and GOP leadership is big but the split between Trump and Republican voters is small.    Ryan may think that Trump needs to bend toward some middle to get Republican unity.  In fact it is the Republican leadership that may need to change to get back in front of their own voters.  


The Republican party is a political organization, not an ideological think tank.  Trump has voters and that is what counts.

The big problem for Trump is not his policies, which are popular.  The big problem for Trump is stylistic.  My Republican Rotarian Chamber of Commerce civic-minded friends are put off by Trump's manner.  He seems so brutal.  He says things plainly. He broke the Republican rule by speaking out clearly at white ethnic and cultural and racial resentments over the civil rights of black, brown, immigrant, and gay people.   That is his problem with Republican leadership.   He has exposed something.

But that is also his strength because those resentments are there.  Republicans poll strongest on having those resentments, but Independents are nearly as strong.   A great many whites feel the civil rights movement has gone too far, too fast, and now the formerly-subjugated groups are displacing them.      Click here: NY Times article on racial resentment

A great many Americans eat meat.   Very few have spent time in a slaughterhouse.  Voters know that blood, death, and dismemberment take place, but they prefer not to see it directly. Trump is stylistically offensive to many Republicans because he is addressing directly the racial resentments that are there but were hidden behind the slaughterhouse gate.

Trump puts voice to that resentment   Republican establishment orthodoxy on immigration and free trade was out of step with the resentment over their economic and social displacement that GOP (and Independent and many Democrats) feel.  Orthodoxy wanted free trade and more immigration and tried to sell the idea that wealth trickled down and what was good for big business was good for America.  Reagan picked Philadelphia, Mississippi (a small town noted for only one thing, the site of the murder of civil rights workers) as a place to launch his campaign and speak for "states rights."   But Reagan was circumspect. Reagan knew to say "urban", not black.  He posited a "welfare queen" in a Cadillac.   Trump openly says Mexicans and Muslims are suspect classes of people.   

Politicians intuit what Academics study and measure

American voters--even ones filled with racial resentment--know better than to say aloud to a pollster that they don't like "the colored", although the man behind me in line for the Trump rally was very comfortable saying it to me and saying that he didn't want his daughter going to school with "them", i.e. blacks and Hispanics.   Some things must not be said in polite company.   Slaughterhouses exist, but one doesn't show the work inside.   

Trump gets stronger support than pundits and pollsters expect, unless the polling is anonymous on-line polling.  Trump's economic policies are more popular than the Republican orthodox policies, the ones held by Mitt Romney, who won 47% of the popular vote.   Trump's style and language appeals to the resentments felt by more people than will admit it openly to a pollster.  

Trump says what he says the way he says it because a great many people agree with him.   And the fact that it is controversial means it gets repeated and repeated.   Win-win for Trump.