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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters are motivated by their prejudices, not economic concerns, social scientists contend. Will Democrats stop trying to win their votes?

In January, Smith and his University of Kansas colleague, associate sociology professor Eric A. Hanley, published a 47-page paper deconstructing the Republican president’s appeal. Building on decades of scholarship about the lure of authoritarianism and their own analysis of American voting psychology in 2012 and 2016, the social scientists make an argument that some may find offensive and others unsurprising.

It goes something like this: Trump’s biggest supporters are motivated by bigotry and want him to hurt the people they dislike.


Note: There's a lot to unpack in this article, and this just seems to be the hook.

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[-] [email protected] 110 points 1 week ago
[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Not necessarily, some of them could be not racist but too dumb to see the conflict.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

If you read/hear anything people in Trump's orbit are pushing as policy and ignore the vehemently racist overtones, that doesn't make you any LESS racist for supporting obvious racists. That's like the trope of people saying "Well, I'm not racist, BUT........"

Same difference.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Not saying there aren't a lot of racists, but there are also many very dumb people. I've met enough of the general population to feel fairly certain that there are a non-zero number of Trump supporters who are otherwise tolerant people. They simply don't think about it.

You'd be surprised by the proportion of the population which spends virtually no time on self-reflection. They just kinda bumble forward through life. Most of these people inherit their political affiliation like a sports team, from their environment. They're not bad people, they just don't think too hard.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

They're not bad people, they just don't think too hard.

I propose that they're bad people because they don't think too hard.

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[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Holy fuck, an exception to Betteridge's Law

[-] [email protected] 61 points 1 week ago

Honestly, my experience is entirely anecdotal, and I completely admit that. I have not read this article yet, so I don't even know what the conclusion is (but I can make an assumption).

Disclaimer being what it is, literally all of the full-on racist people I know or have known are also MAGA conservatives. And conversely, all the MAGA people I know or have known are way more racist than average. I say that from the perspective that, at least in the USA, most people have racial biases to a certain extent.

I've been told things like "You don't have the right skin color to take the bus into the city", meaning because I'm Caucasian with "white" skin, I would somehow be an outlier among the rest of the folks taking the bus. Many, many times I've heard statements like "we can't even say [the N-word] anymore even though that's what they call themselves all the time" and let me tell you the people saying that don't say "N-word" they say the real deal that rhymes with chigger. They'll claim illegal "Mexicans" took their jobs, without a moment's thought about who hired those "Mexicans" or what nationality those "Mexicans" are. There's really no skin color other than white-white that doesn't receive some hate.

Anyway, this is just old man ranting at this point, and it may even be too long to be readable, so let me summarize it with FUCK RACISTS & FUCK MAGA.

[-] [email protected] 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The average immigrant from Guatemala has had about 2-4 years of school in their entire life. They don't speak English and will never be fluent. There a decent chance they're not even literate in Spanish.

Now imagine who you have to be for that person to be a threat to your job.

[-] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago

I am the son of MAGA parents. They were never overtly racist. They were always kind to my non-white friends and their non-white neighbors, always thinking that they were "one of the good ones". But since Trump has validated their latent racism, it has become more ugly. I think that's more insidious and dangerous than empowering the lunatic fringe, honestly.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

Trump made a lot of people who thought it was a societal norm to be kind and hide their biases feel like it was okay, and that felt freeing to them. It’s also why many of them bray about freedom

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[-] [email protected] 47 points 1 week ago

Hmmm, I wonder if the political base that waves Confederate and nazi flags, serves a fascist dictatorship, and works alongside fascists globally might be racist? What a real head scratcher that is, who knows really

/s

[-] [email protected] 41 points 1 week ago

I'm sure many don't think they're racist but most if not all probably buy into the line that we all have an equal playing field in life and any statement to the contrary is just victimhood.

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[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Does the Pope shit in the woods?

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

I hear the new pope likes camping, so likely, yes.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Is the bear Catholic?

[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago
[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

So... MAGA = Cucks? Once again, every accusation is a confession.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago
[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

"Journalist remembers social sciences exist and start listening 10+ years late to see if it snags some web traffic" Trust me, social science and history have been on red alert this whole time.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

They're not all racists but all racists are maga

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[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago
[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

No. Like the earth, a circle is flat.

mic drop

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: YEEEEESSSSSSSSSS.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Your just now deciding to weigh in on this? After how fucking long?

His base is fueled by a fear that the "wrong" people (people that look, speak,dress, act, believe differently, and that I don't really know) are trying to take the country from the "good" people (people like me, that I know).

The issue is that the only cure is to make people get outside of their box. I really started to realize this when I began working with more departments/clinicians in the hospital I was working at. What I've found is that the more you get out there and interact with people who aren't like you, the more you realize that broad generalizations aren't really worth a damn, and that there's more good people of all types than you'd think. The main thing they have in common is that they aren't fucking shitwad billionaires.

I used to show up early for work to catch the morning rush of doctors in the physicians lounge and see a Muslim doctor or two praying after being there since 2am because they were on call, and decided to round on all their consults before they left, and here I am rolling in hungover just waiting to pound out another 8 hours so I can go home and get drunk and high for another night.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Their findings will be published in the "Journal Of No Shit Sherlock."

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[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Oh come on they can't be racist! There's people of color in that base! What are they, racist against themselves? Please, that makes no sense. That's like if there were Jews that supported the Nazis! Or black folk that fought for the Confederacy!

/s if that's not obvious

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

HOLY FUCK! PEOPLE WHO VOTE FOR ETHNIC CLEANSING ARE RACIST!

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

How many racists do you know that didn’t vote for Trump?

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Same reason bigotry isn't an impedance to a gay or woman President that I see so many people try to claim. Bigots aren't voting Democrat no matter who it is. Good thing you don't need those deplorables to win.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

I mean, obviously the answer is yes. But that is a great hook into what's next.

This article also does a good job of making an argument for the Democrats to tack left and have a strong contrasting message to the Republicans. Even the squishiest, least offensive MAGA is still pretty far right and closer to Trump than to any Democrat. They don't even regret their votes in any appreciable way. The most regret is coming from people who stayed home or voted third party. Give them a real contrast so even the most intellectually dishonest grifter can't say "both sides" anymore.

If the Democrats had a real message and some fight in them, they could be an opposition party. Instead, most just want to write strongly worded letters without doing the hard work. And with that, they might actually win elections. Too bad they're only starting to figure this out now when it's probably too late.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

The entire problem is very specifically that they lie about the economy in lockstep, and the media reports it and then idiot centrists are like "oh yeah I guess the economy is bad? People keep talking about it so it must be true."

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

"Centrist" pundits be like: "No, it's the democrats, who went too far by language policing whites for calling blacks a historically accepted word blacks use in rap music, and other double standards, especially within law enforcement, favoring blacks over other races."

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Wasn't this settled way back when?

Anyway, I seem to remember that digging deeper on donvict's base after Hillary's deplorables "gaffe" (not a fucking "gaffe" to tell the goddamn truth about awful people) found that she was basically correct - a portion of them are racists, xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists...

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

You need academics, research scientists and a bunch of professionals to figure this out?

This like asking firefighters to produce a research paper to determine if there is a fire for the towering burning 50 story inferno that's lighting up the skyline.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

To be fair, you can't always take things as "obvious" in science without so much as an attempt to investigate, because every so often an idea that seems obvious or common sense turns out to be wrong, or has some unexpected detail to it.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Suck it, Betteridge !

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Sigh... They're not racist they're just "economically anxious".

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Me, a social scientist as well: Bubbler noises

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I could have saved them some time, yes, yes they are. Now who do I call to get my name on this paper?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

It goes something like this: Trump’s biggest supporters are motivated by bigotry and want him to hurt the people they dislike.

Hence his supporter whining that he's not hurting the people he "needs" to be hurting. I'm sure many of us personally know people just like this and most definitely do get a chubby when they think about someone like donvict actively harming certain segments of society.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

I'm a Democratic Strategist and I think the BEST Takeaway from THIS is that we NEED to Start HURTING More People VERY LOUDLY so we can get THESE Votes INSTEAD of Trying to Keep the Voters we ALREADY have!

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

It's not always necessary to believe in white supremacy to support white supremacist policy. It would be sufficient to just be a psychopath who is white.

If you have no empathy, no capacity for compassion, give zero shits about justice or the greater good of society, and you believe that putting racists in power will help people of your own race, that's what you're going to do. Because it might help you, personally, to get ahead.

I think there are more of these people in the Republican party than there are those who actually think the white race is superior and deserves to rule.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Is a frog’s ass watertight?

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[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Unequivocally yes. Next question.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Took them long to find out the obvious answer. Nice they finally did.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah, that’s about as surprising as sand at the beach.

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this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
259 points (96.1% liked)

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