They work, and it worked

Donald Trump wins president

Last night it was finally revealed after this long campaign season that Donald Trump is our president-elect. This was a surprise to many pollsters , and I think a surprise to many Americans as well. We’ve seen throughout this whole season that Mr. Trump was appealing to the white working class, as this article says he “…won virtually every state from Appalachia to the Rockies” because of the Americans that make “real, tangible things — food, fiber, energy and manufactured goods”.

I’ve wondered what made this demographic in particular vote for Trump, not just based on his promises to “bring jobs back to America”  or the fear of losing their jobs to overseas workers- but the root of the anxiety of the future and the root of the hate for Hillary Clinton.

I think that when it came down to it, Clinton was far too elitist regarding education. Her deplorable comment combined with her supporter’s comments that Trump supporters are all “uneducated” angered and isolated the working class who might not have a college degree. In fact it was shown in this article, how the largest group of voters in this election were white voters with “no college”. These voters clung to Trumps promises for the future because they felt it included them and they were not being patronized in the same way they were if Clinton took office.

It was not just the industries they worked in that pushed the right, but also the self pride in their work rather than their schooling that made them align against a “liberal elite”.

Bamboozled by Trump, but not Persuaded by the President

Obama

On Tuesday evening, in the highly sought after ‘swing state’ of Ohio, President Obama offered a direct warning to the working class voters that Trump has won over:

“the notion that this guy is your champion, the notion that this guy is going to fight for working people, when his entire life, he didn’t have time for anybody who wasn’t rich or wasn’t a celebrity, who wouldn’t let you in to one of his hotels unless you were cleaning the room, wouldn’t let you on to one of his golf courses unless you were mowing the fairway? Come on!

But does this warning from President Obama trump the candidates previous appeal to these voters? I think not for several reasons.

First of all, President Obama historically lacks credibility with this audience as evidenced by his lower approval ratings among this group. His lower credibility (or ethos) means that messages will not be received with as much gravity compared to if someone who had more credibility with the working class was to speak. It could’ve been more strategic to have someone like Mitt Romney, who has demonstrated success among this population in the past as well as demonstrated a lack of support for Trump.

President Obama also did not appeal to the logos of the audience, as he could have employed more empirical evidence. He offered examples, but not hard numbers which can also be persuasive to some listeners. I think it could have been effective to add more anecdotal evidence as well.

The speech, although persuasive to some, did not appeal to the working class voters, especially those who do not see President Obama as a strong source. We’ll see if Trump decides to reply to the ineffective remarks.

 

Dangerous Donald

Screenshot of tweet describing the #repealthe19th trend
Screenshot of tweet describing the #repealthe19th trend

Donald Trump has proven time and time again to make incredibly sexist comments. From the nineties calling women “beautiful pieces of ass” to the recent video leak from 2005 , his views can be described as misogynistic, objectifying, and vastly inappropriate for anyone (but especially a presidential candidate) to say. His comments also set an example that is extremely dangerous for his supporters to hear, encouraging sexual assault- and in a more broad sense, viewing women as subservient objects rather than active members of society.

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Nate Silver released a graph that showed that Donald Trump would win if only men voted, emphasizing the polarization of genders in this election. The response to this graph was incredibly alarming. Supporters of Trump, many of whom being the working class, began tweeting about how if women were standing in the way of a Trump victory than they should not be able to vote at all, and thus the #repealthe19th was born. This hashtag alludes to the 19th amendment that granted women the right to vote. The calls to repeal this amendment, at first may seem unrelated to the sexist Trump comments addressed earlier in this post, but in fact echo the exact same theme, women should not be treated as equals.

Trump supporters view him as having some sort of credibility (or ethos), therefor his remarks that are against women validate their remarks because they see what he says as (if not okay) excusable given his position of power and potentiol for even more power. These supporters voices will be trickled down into their communities and if Trump wins, also be validated creating a dangerous waterfall of female objectification.

 

A Huuuge Wall of Insecurity

 

Trump shakes hands with one of his supporters. Image credit: http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-rides-a-blue-collar-wave-1447803248
Trump shakes hands with one of his supporters. Image from the Wall Street Journal.

Donald Trump has several trends that have remained fairly constant throughout his campaigning process. The first, is his ongoing support base of white middle class voters. The second being his strong views regarding immigration and trade deals. The relationship between the this demographic and the repeated call to “build the wall” can be linked in the root of the insecurities and anxiety of the white working class  and Trump’s strategic approach to capitalize on this white fear .

In this breakdown published by CNN, Trump supporters are said to be more than twice as likely than non-Trump supporters to believe that their lives have been negatively impacted by immigrants working in the US. The study also shows that 62% of Trump supporters think that latin american immigrants take jobs from americans and in addition 60% state that they think latin american immigrants add to the crime problem. This is demonstrating a high level of anxiety about the future of america with regarding immigration. If immigration trends continue as is, it is projected that the white working class will become a minority majority and that people of color will be the majority by 2030 which given that the white working class demographic fears will cause their job loss and crime seems quite threatening.

Trump takes full advantage of this fear of the immigrant population in America by continuously stating in such harsh ways that he will “build a wall” to help the white working class visualize how he would stop this trend in the most tangible way possible. By doing this, he is not using a logical approach to attract these voters , but rather he is using an emotional one which as discussed in class is proven to be very effective in generating support. In this campaign, Trump is already utilizing a wall, the huge white wall of american fear and insecurities.