What I can’t figure out is why the folks in those $ 8 5 0 , 0 0 0 (which is VERY expensive in this area) houses vote for Trump.
They are obviously doing amazing in this economy. The houses are brand new, having been built a few months ago in a subdivision with very high property taxes.
It can’t be Mexicans / Muslims because there aren’t any for hundreds of miles around. Mexicans / Muslims are as relevant to this area as Australians.
What is it, then ? They are rich and getting richer, they don’t have to see anybody non-white anywhere but on TV. What’s making them this angry?
Clarissa's Blog 
They have a fantasy that they can be like Trump and not pay income taxes for 18+ years if he’s elected.
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Hah! Makes sense. In a very creepy way.
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They are afraid to lose all of that. You have to be very insecure to support Trump.
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They are afraid of losing it to the hordes of marauding Mexicans. 😃
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Yes, amazing that all those rich, “very insecure,” Mexican-hating “deplorables” can be found in an academic neighborhood like yours, Clarissa. Maybe you should consider moving to a less inferior part of town. 🙂
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It’s not large enough to have “parts.”
And I said that this can’t be about Mexicans because there aren’t any. There’s got to be something else.
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Perhaps it’s a realization that politics as usual under a radical “progressive” Democratic President has taken America in a disastrous direction, especially in foreign affairs. Our current President hasn’t built a wall — he’s just hidden under the bed for the last eight years, ceding international leadership to Putin, Iran, and an emboldened China that smells blood in the waters of the South Pacific.
Perhaps half of the voters in this country — rich, poor, white and yes, even people of color and many women, and people with advanced degrees and credentials — believe that a major change is desperately needed in America before it’s too late.
You can believe — as I do — that Trump isn’t the man to make the necessary changes. But every time some self-righteous, superior liberal considers himself/herself “better” than those “inferior, racist, sexist, whatever” Trump supporters, that smug, egotistical clown is helping to get Trump elected.
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lol @ you. We’ve talked about this before. You just can’t lay the blame for Trump on liberals. That’s dishonest, even by your standards.
Let’s start with four decades of right wing agitprop disseminated through AM radio and Fox news. 24/7 programming devoted to whipping up racial resentments, sexist rhetoric, and you’re fucking surprised at the rise of Trump?
I’m sorry, it’s YOU who think your average republican voter is stupid. Why else would we have such a preponderance of right wing financial scams. Your people buy underground bunkers because they think doomsday is coming.
The rich, by definition, are few. So, to get more people on your side, your party has cynically exploited race, religion, sex, and any other goddamned fault line they could think of. And finally comes a guy who doesn’t even bother to do all of that in code.
That is literally the only difference between Trump and the establishment republicans. He doesn’t bother with dog whistles.
lol @ blaming liberals. You craven, lying moron.
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‘Libruls make fun of me on the internet so I started calling black people ni**ers and mexicans rapists’.
Get the fuck out of here.
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I knew my comment would make you lose your cool and start a ridiculous rant.
Thanks for not disappointing! 🙂
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Your master plan of posting stupid shit online so people call you stupid is working out brilliantly. That’s some 4-D chess you’re playing there.
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I linked this once before to no reaction, so I’ll link it again.
http://www.interfluidity.com/v2/date/2016/10
There are some problems but it does bring up some important points on the difference between individual politics vs community politics.
In short: Many Trump supporters are more affluent members of communities that are not doing well (and who are concerned about that).
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People do not vote according to issues or their own self-interest even but rather to their own self-image or aspirational identity.
My guess is that Trump supporters see the self-images/identities on offer roughly as follows (nb these are my attempts to imagine what their motives are not my own perceptions on each candidate)
Trump offers them:
wealth through accomplishment;
robust health;
job creation;
national greatness;
concern for the less well off;
community pride;
peace through strength;
more loyalty to citizens than non-citizens;
hapiness through prosperity;
cultural assimilation of the willing;
strong families (yes);
sexual propriety (yes)
Clinton offers them:
wealth through connections;
spiraling national debt;
aging and sickness;
national void;
no borders;
endless neo-con wars;
community disintegration;
lip service for the less well off;
prioritizing non-citizens over citizens;
endless concern and worry;
culural fragmentation;
dysfunctional marriage;
sexual deviance
If those were your perceptions who would you vote for?
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Trump offers them:
wealth through accomplishment;
robust health;
job creation;
national greatness;
concern for the less well off;
community pride;
peace through strength;
more loyalty to citizens than non-citizens;
hapiness through prosperity;
`cultural assimilation of the willing;strong families (yes);
sexual propriety (yes)
Clinton offers them:
wealth through connections;
spiraling national debt;
aging and sickness;
national void;
no borders;
endless neo-con wars;
community disintegration;
lip service for the less well off;
prioritizing non-citizens over citizens;
endless concern and worry;
culural fragmentation;
dysfunctional marriage;
sexual deviance
FTFY. The very idea Trump cares about or represents cultural assimilation of the willing, strong families and sexual propriety is ludicrous even for Trump voters. Any stabs at claiming this point at Pence and some wishful thinking that Trump listens to him or poofs. I’ve listened to hours and hours of his speeches. Trump’s family situation is a tawdry shitshow to cultural conservatives.
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“Trump’s family situation is a tawdry shitshow to cultural conservatives.”
I’m sure. But I would say his primary appeal is not to cultural conseratives (in any traditional sense). Evangelicals will probably stay home rather than vote for him.
I’m hoping that no matter what happens next week that the evangelicals will lose their stranglehold over the republicans.
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And to be clear, I think his supporters are wrong about what he will/can do should he be elected. But the things I mentioned can be found in what his supporters write/say.
I might add “Open patriotism” to the list.
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They want to build a wall to keep The Blacks out and make East St. Louis pay for it.
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What I can’t figure out is why the folks in those $ 8 5 0 , 0 0 0 (which is VERY expensive in this area) houses vote for Trump.
Taxes. Specifically income tax and estate taxes. Basically your standard Republican line on it. Same as it ever was. Trump would get rid of the estate tax completely. HRC would raise it.
A widget :Cruz had the lowest over all tax rate proposal
I mean, I can’t comment on whether these people are over leveraged or not.
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They probably are way over their heads with debt.
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If they have kids perhaps they want their children to be able to grow up in the America they knew that has proven to be a great nation. The alternative with Hilary is the kids living their lives in an unproven globalist experiment.
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That’s not something that Hillary makes or can prevent. But it’s cool that you see her as this powerful. Godlike even. 😎
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Hillary is a market globalist, and good for her — trying to stem the overwhelming forces driving that ideology is like trying to hold back the tide. (She’s lying about being opposed to TPP, just like she’s lying about continuing Obama’s “successes” — and about, well, just about everything else that she says.)
At least the country is electing an intelligent sociopath.
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Yes. There is nothing a single person can do to turn back the tide of the technological revolution and the attendant transformation of the global economy. Now it’s all about which region of the world will get a jump on everybody else and dominate the next 100 years. The US got a jump on everybody in late 19th century and owned the 20th century. Will it be able to repeat that feat? Or will Americans retreat into fantasies of bringing back the past?
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Of course I think she will be very powerful if she becomes the president of the United States!
A lot Trump supporters are against market globalism because China is cheating by not letting our companies compete fairly in China. I don’t know what to do about that. It would be a good post though.
I’m more concerned about the cultural effects of mass migration. I’m concerned about the growing Muslim population with the terrorism we’ve seen since 9/11. I’m also concerned since many Muslims are anti Israel activists. They do seem to be convincing millennials that Israel is a racist apartheid state. I support the Jews having a homeland since there has been so much persecution of Jews in Europe and Africa.
The other thing I am concerned about is the fragmentation of the United States on Linguistic lines with Spanish being pushed on the country so aggressively. I think we could end up like Canada, Belgium, and Ukraine with two languages and pretty much two different nations in one country. I don’t think the Irish, Italians, Poles, Brazilians, or any one else but the Spanish speaking hispanics came to the United States not with the thought that the migrants had to learn English but that it is American’s responsibility to learn Spanish upon their arrival. This is an invader mindset not a migrant mindset.
Hilary could stop the cultural effects by not taking Syrian refugees, making English the sole official language, building a wall or fence on the Mexican border, deporting illegal immigrants, more coast guard ships protecting Florida and the Dry Tortugas, and putting in place a system like Australia’s point system for immigration. With the point syatem we only take in migrants that our economy really needs like farm workers until we can assimilate the current wave of immigrants.
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There are two roads national governments can follow:
Distract our attention with vapid bluster about cheating China, building imaginary walls and creating official languages. We’ll be entertained and not notice that technological advances are pushing the majority of population into complete uselessness.
Try to preserve some shreds of the tattered social safety net that will make the process of most people sliding into uselessness less intolerable.
These are the options. Everything else is a lie. National governments no longer can do more than this.
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I will believe your theory about the end of the nation state when countries that have nationalist policies lose control of their borders and sovereignty. The best example I can think of for a nation like this that millions of people want to move to but are turned away is Japan.
Japan is technologically advanced and Japanese companies compete in the global market without open borders, multiculturalism, and Muslim no go zones.
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“I will believe your theory about the end of the nation state when countries that have nationalist policies lose control of their borders and sovereignty.”
“The best example I can think of for a nation like this that millions of people want to move to but are turned away is Japan.”
Try to look at borders and nation-states not from the point of view of immigration because you’ve already done that, time for something new. Try to look at them and wonder if they have any meaning to capital. Does capital even notice them any longer? That’s the important issue. And that is the issue we are distracted from by all the useless, repetitive talk about immigrants.
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I agree with you that globalism is more economically efficient.
I think there are major down sides though. Immigration is one I already explained above.
Another major downside is countries not being able to make their own laws and policies. I want us Americans to be able to decide on our own laws and policies not and organization like the UN. Some guy from Brussels has not lived in the US and will have a harder time knowing what Americans need and want.
Go to an event called an Anime convention and you’ll find a lot of the “idiots” who want to go to Japan. I wouldn’t say they are desperate but many of them talk of moving to Japan.
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You are absolutely right, there are enormous downsides. Which is what my research is all about. I’m guessing you never thought literary criticism can be about such fascinating stuff, eh? 🙂
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It is fascinating and relevant. I would buy your book on the topic.
If writing a book is how research in the humanities is completed.
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“Try to look at them and wonder if they have any meaning to capital. Does capital even notice them any longer?”
The problem with this is that it sounds like a combination of magic thinking and the tail wagging the dog (as it were).
What meaning does capital have if it’s not improving people’s lives? This is like voodoo (or #spiritcooking).
If Ben is too fixed on borders then way too many people are ways too fixated on the worship of capital completely divorced from its purpose in the world.
The question is how to harness capital for good rather than treat it as a volatile and veangeful god that mut be appeased.
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Capital improves the lives of those who have access to it. And to have any access at all, one needs to be highly mobile, and I don’t just mean geographically. Intellectual, psychological, professional mobility can at least give hope for access.
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