At RealClearPolitics Sean Trende and David Byler have done an interesting analysis of the results of the iowa caucus that may lead to some may be counterintuitive conclusions about the Republican primaries:
So we see that Ted Cruz and Ben Carson ran well in counties with high shares of married couples with families. This is consistent with them running well among voters in the religious right. Indeed, if you check the long-term RCP Averages, you will see Carson’s decline coinciding almost perfectly with Cruz’s rise.
You’ll see the middle box that Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Kasich and Rubio all ran well in counties with high incomes, high levels of college graduates, high numbers of new homes, and recently transplanted populations. This is consistent with these five candidates splitting the “establishment†vote among themselves, with no one able to obtain a solid lead.Then in the bottom right corner, we see Mike Huckabee and Trump running well in counties of self-described “Americans,†people of Scots-Irish descent (which overlaps with “Americanâ€), and high levels of unemployment. This is consistent with our understanding of Trump as the continuation of the Buchananite tradition of insurgencies within the Republican Party, rather than what we might call religious or libertarian Tea Party-ism.
Note that the “Buchananite tradition” goes back for several decades. When you’ve been ignored for long enough, the impulse to tear the house down can become hard to resist.
Do Trump voters really want to tear the house down? I don’t see it. They’re happy to tear the houses of other down. But their own? Hell no.
Moreover, where is the evidence that the average Trump voter has been ignored? Reagan Democrats, the white working class, the average Joe in Ohio who wants to have a beer with a candidate–these tropes have been the fixation of the entire political class since Reagan came to power. And it’s still happening. Trump isn’t out there talking about solidarity and trying to unite the white working class with immigrants. He’s talking to the sort of people who think they should get Medicare but poor blacks shouldn’t get food stamps. He’s just exploiting prejudices and offering magical solutions that will never work and which, more importantly, represent pure ugliness. We are basically getting to the point where prejudices are like money, and the same people that hate everything about spending money on others are quite happy to horde their prejudices.
I don’t believe Iowa has a lot of Scots-Irish. To my eye, looking at the Iowa caucus results by county, Trump was doing better in counties with rivers, particularly along the Mississippi and Missouri. That suggests he was doing better in areas with manufacturing, though not necessarily major manufacturing. In places like Davenport (John Deere/ Rock Island Arsenal) and Des Moines (tire mfg.), his vote would have been swamped by people employed by government, financial services and healthcare. OTOH, the plains folk tended to vote for Cruz.
I guess I wouldn’t focus on the Scots-Irish here, there are some in Iowa and maybe they’re all river-rats, but there were other demographics that would have been interesting to explore, like mfg jobs per county or Scandinavians or non-Hispanic Catholics.
Scots-Irish ancestry is the eighth line from the bottom on the chart they provide (originally from Patrick Ruffini). There is apparently data to support the claims.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau there are 23,714 Scots-Irish in Iowa (0.8% of the population). So a county with relatively more Scots-Irish in it than another county may not have that many more Scots-Irish in it. Ruffini’s color coding doesn’t suggest the correlation is that strong, but I question why he bothered to look at such a small grouping anyway. But if it means anything its not really about the Scots-Irish themselves, but where they choose to live: not on the plains, not in the big cities.
The GOP has been lying to these people for decades, playing the divide-and-rule race card, pandering to social issues voters who were completely disconnected from the reality of 21st century America, happily divorcing themselves from tedious facts and embracing fantasy and conspiracy theory. Trump is a GOP creation. Trump is the proof of what I’ve long said: “conservative” no longer means anything quantifiable, and people who called themselves conservatives were more often than not radicals, racists and assorted other types of bigot.
However. On economic issues the fading white working class is not wrong to be anxious. That anxiety has reached a boiling point, and suddenly the Money wing of the GOP discovers that they’ve got a serf rebellion on their hands. And the wink-wink racism, nativism and rage the Money GOP has been stoking for their own purposes has now all-but destroyed the Republican party brand. The GOP is now the badly-educated, low-information, rage-and-hate-fueled white people’s party, period, conservatism be damned.
That said, I have been trying for some time now to impress upon my fellow liberals that in 2012 whites were 72% of voters and that even a moderate fall-off in white support for Team Blue could not be compensated for by either African-American or Latino turn-out. We should be reaching out to genuinely and justifiably distressed white working class voters. Sanders is trying, but it’s too little, too late. The primary challenge from Sanders, rather than having the effect his supporters expect – more focus on Wall Street – has pushed HRC into prioritizing minority votes. It’s pushing her left, but the wrong left.
Both parties bear some part of the blame, but the balance is about 80/20 in favor of the GOP having brought on their own destruction. And it did not begin with the election of Barack Obama. The embrace of racism started in the sixties. The disconnection from reality began with Reagan. The trivialization of the office of President came to a head with John McCain’s choice of an imbecile to be one heartbeat away from the oval office. Trump is the result. When he’s done there will be no more GOP as an economically conservative party.
You want to reach out to working class whites while calling them stupid bigots to their faces? Yeah, that’s going to work wonders.
I agree with what you say but I don’t think you’ve taken it quite far enough. Just as the Republicans have been lying to blue collar white voters for decades so have the Democrats been lying to blacks. The time is really ripe for a populist candidate.
Trump (or any other populist candidate) doesn’t need to win the majority of the black vote to derail a Democratic candidate. Just enough.
This of course is why the GOP has been playing the race card, precisely to head off any possibility that the working class could ever unite against the 1%. The game goes back at least as far as plantation days in the old south. And now the disease that was deliberately spread is consuming the party that for so long has profited from it.
At least now we can cut the bullshit and stop pretending that the GOP is conservative.
The term I’ve been using is “Right Bolshevik”.
So, your explanation is that saying “Hey, you stupid asshole Klansman, vote for us because we really care about your utterly worthless selves” will work because why?
Mostly you are just reiterating that you hate white people that aren’t rich or gay, and that you’ll be happier when you can import a few hundred million brown people. I don’t see how inciting more racial animus is supposed to help you with white voters.
Below is an excerpt from The Federalist giving another POV for the rise of someone like Trump:
The discontent felt is hardly an 80/20 split asserted by Michael. It’s an even 50/50! In the case of Republicans, they have demonstrated imprecise/vague leadership, showing no backbone to promises made. Democrats have grown more divisive, dishonest and intolerant, especially through their tight embrace of strident political correctness — condoning black racism, while labeling and verbally flogging anyone not buying into the perpetuation of victimization. They pander to Black Lives Matter hypocrisy, college whining about absolute nothing, relegating HRC’s ethical lapses as trivial, serious scandals in the Obama administration as “non-scandals,” seemingly not owing the broadening of poverty or any other societal ills or failed policies, even though they have played power ball in the WH, along with bits and pieces of Congress under their control, for 7 long years!
Consequently, people on all sides are restless, disappointed creating an immoderate willingness to make another change for “change’s sake,” rather than one that would satisfy another’s more conventional definition of employing a “reasonable” choice. In a way this is a reenactment of Obama’s ’08 playbook, where targeting people’s emotions, rather than their pragmatism is producing unwieldy, unimaginable results.
IOW, people are rebelling against the arrogant overreach and hubris of the democrat establishment, as well as the under-performed, under-promised actions and hubris of the republican establishment. These mutually committed and intertwined failures by the political class is the underlying motivation having people marching to their own drum — befuddling the know-it-alls this time around.
1. There are no black people in Iowa, give or take 3% margin of error. The notion that Trump supporters were galvanized to caucus by race hatred is inane.
2. Trump didn’t win among conservatives. People who self-identified as very conservative voted for Cruz, somewhat conservative voted for Rubio, and self-described moderates voted for Trump. Trump also won among those who’ve never voted in a caucus before and tied Rubio among Independents.
http://edition.cnn.com/election/primaries/polls/ia/Rep
Again, Ice, I’m actually for limiting immigration and have long favored an employer ID system enforced with serious fines. I am not and never have been for open borders.
But I can’t pretend that a large percentage of Trump voters, and a large percentage of the GOP, are not racist. It is not my fault that they have allowed themselves to be brainwashed and used by Money Cons whose only real interest is in their own bank account. Reality exists.
The GOP in 1968 could have done the right thing, and they chose instead to go to the dark side. The GOP in 1980 could have leveled with people, instead they pulled out their racialist dog whistles and plastic fetuses, broke the unions and pushed voodoo economics and “free trade” magic. In 2008 the GOP could have tried to work with Obama, they chose instead to call him a Kenyan/Muslim interloper and reject any effort to address actual problems facing the country. And of course this year the geniuses of the GOP decided to push Super Tuesday into the deep south, into the states of the old Confederacy, looking for largely mythical “conservatives” and instead handing the nomination over to the most backward elements of their backward party.
Actions have consequences. The GOP created Trump, and now Trump, who as far as I can tell has not a single genuine political principle, is destroying the myth of the conservative movement and will so alter the GOP that we will no longer have even a dishonest conservative party.
The Democratic party has plenty to answer for as well, but a year from now it will still exist. Team Blue is dumb, corrupt and dishonest, but it is not (yet) suicidal. A year from now we’ll have the Democratic Party representing liberalism, and some shattered rump of the GOP representing nothing at all but Fuhrerprinzip.
PD:
Oh, good grief. They can’t be motivated by race because there are not enough black people? Half the country is hating on Muslims and there aren’t enough Muslims in the whole country to fill a stadium.
michael: People who live in areas where they don’t interact with African-Americans for long stretches of time do not define their politics around denying blacks access to food stamps. They certainly don’t decide to go vote for the first time in their life.
Why PD, it is as if you had never heard of Iowa Congressman Steve King. The only source I could find suggests that 0.21% of their population is Muslim, and I think we know how King feels about them.
http://www.bestplaces.net/religion/state/iowa
As to the broader topic, jan speaks well to it, as an example. The right wing media has spent a lot of time convincing them there are a lot of problems with PC. A lot of big scandals that are being ignored. (Never mind the fact that investigations conducted by Republicans can’t find anything either.) Somehow another what a bunch of 20 y/o kids are doing on campus is supposed to reflect upon adults. Meh. I guess if you can’t find any adults to go after you go after the students. Couple all of the faux anger with the things they really should be angry about, and you have a bunch of people who are pretty pissed.
That said, it is still disappointing they chose Trump. He is very transparently a liar about most everything. He really isn’t that good of a business person. He talks like a bad ass, but really he is just another freaking pussy who got 5 deferments to avoid fighting when he had his chance. The one thing he does well, and he does that really well, is market his name.
I would also note that he is pretty popular with the long term Tea Party group I talk with, and the social cons I talk with. Go figure.
Steve
Steve King who endorsed Cruz?
Jan’s citation is closer to the truth than the hysterical ranting going on, especially by Michael.
Who wants to tell me the current Dem party is the party of Kennedy? The common thread is increasing reliance on government to fix perceived ills, but it is not working……..and Balkanization politics, with predictable consequences. People have caught on, the only winners are in or have influence with government; so you get an insurgent candidate who people hope will just break stuff. Apportioning blame between parties is impossible to do – a fools errand, pointless except for soothing neuroses, and just plain infantile.
PD- Yup, the same Cruz who is trying to be as anti-immigrant as Trump. How can King go wrong? And while you are ordinarily one of our most rational posters, I don’t think you really understand how things work in much of the country. As I have noted, King, and since Iowans keep voting him in, hate Muslims when they make up 0.2% of their population. As far as blacks go, come visit coal country with me. Almost no blacks here, and they brag about it. You really don’t have to live in an area with lots of blacks to not like them.
Drew- Of course she is right. Why, if you just investigate Benghazi one more time I am sure you will find something. I mean it is pretty clear at this point that the Congressional Republicans are in on the cover up too. You need to find “Real Conservatives” to conduct the investigations. LOL.
Steve
He is very transparently a liar about most everything.
Which distinguishes him from a Rubio or a Clinton how, exactly?
But I’ll agree, Trump is a shitty messenger. But every single one of the rest of them (with a possible exception in Bernie Sanders) are just more of the same: Invade the world, invite the world. There’s nibbling around the edges of who gets the bigger share of the spoils, but that’s about all when it comes to real differences.
So, if you’re unhappy with the direction of things, there IS no one else – not unless TB can get his Nicki Minaj bandwagon rolling.
Almost no blacks here, and they brag about it. You really don’t have to live in an area with lots of blacks to not like them.
Yeah, but it sure seems like those of you who profess to love them the most won’t live among them.
Muslim is not a race.
Again, Ice, I’m actually for limiting immigration and have long favored an employer ID system enforced with serious fines. I am not and never have been for open borders.
Yes, and the likelihood of you ever voting for anyone other than someone that favors completely open borders and importing a few hundred million Third World peasants into the US to insure that Mark Zuckerburg gets the cheapest possible lawn service … is nil. So, stop pretending like you would ever support anything but open borders. It’s a shame, another goddamned lie.
The GOP in 1968 could have done the right thing, and they chose instead to go to the dark side.
Ah, yes, 1968 again. When Nixon appealed to all the racists in the South and got all their votes, every last one. (Never mind that he won most of the upper MidWest, the Great Plains states, Hell, all but three states in the Continental US west of the Mississippi save for Texas, Washington and Minnesota. The Dems only won five states west of W. Virginia.)
It’s almost as if George Wallace, former Democrat, never existed, and got zero votes. (He won five states and received 46 electoral votes.) And let’s not forget all the nigger haters in Texas that year that voted for … uh, Hubert Humphrey.
And I’ll note that Democrats apparently never have to answer for THEIR Southern Strategy, without which that august party would not have ever existed in the first place.
Muslim is not a race.
Irrelevant! And you get extra hater demerits for bringing it up!
But sure, if Michael and steve want we can import fifty million Arabs — to Marin County and Coal Country PA. I’m sure Mikey and Stevie will love their new neighbors as much as the Germans do.
“Muslim is not a race.”
A distinction without a difference in politics.
“steve want we can import fifty million Arabs ”
I have advocated for the 10,000/year that was proposed. In order to reach 50 million that would be how many years? IIRC, you took some math courses.
Steve
steve supports the Presidents announcement to resettle more than 10,000 Syrian refugees by September 30, 2016, while condescending to the rest of us that the process takes years of careful scrutiny before they are resettle. 841 have been resettled in almost six months. How about the President’s announcement was stupid in many ways?
Are you using the term Scots-Irish in the historical meaning, or are you
meaning people of Scottish and Irish roots?
The ‘Scots-Irish’ came to be when the Irish were discriminated against
in the North East and they said they were Scots-Irish so that it would be assumed they were from Northern Ireland and Protestants. The discrimination against the Catholic Irish from Ireland was rife and they could not get work or housing.
So I am curious to know why you are using ‘Scots-Irish’ in the context you used it; it seems misleading.
@Kate, the term “Scots-Irish” being used in the analysis is based upon people’s self-identification of ethnicity on Census forms. Most such people live in the South or Appalachia. They are found in the lower Midwest along the Ohio river valley, but not in places like Iowa.
Historically, the Scots-Irish are the descendants of Scots (and Northern English) that were settled in Ulster in the 17th century to colonize Ireland. After facing discrimination from the English they migrated in large numbers to the U.S. before the Revolution, and settled in the backcountry. When they later began pushing into the lower Midwest they stopped at the “tree line,” and did not plow the prairies. Those that moved west largely became miners and ranchers.
Politically, the reason they are looking at Scots-Irish is the claim by Senator Jim Webb that they constitute a large ethnic group that is unrepresented in the political system. His political preferences, martial and isolationist, culturally conservative and opposed to the hyphenation of America, are supposed to be representative. I’ve read his book, and the two history books he primarily relied upon. He emphasizes those aspects of the history that most reflect his family tree.
It may be shorthand for “white evangelicals who don’t identify as of Germanic or generic American”.
Self-identification presents interesting issues. I skipped over the point that counties with relatively higher “American” ethnicity were more likely to vote for Trump. Partly that seems too obvious that a populist-nationalist would appeal to people who self-identify as “American.”
But whether they are Scots-Irish is questionable. People will self-identify as “American,” if they don’t know what they are, or they do know what they are but it won’t fit conveniently in a simple description, or they have an ideological skepticism of nationality.
Webb took a city in Eastern Kentucky where a lot of people self-identified as “American” and argued that because this area was obviously settled by Scots-Irish, people who identify as “American” anywhere in the country are likely Scots-Irish. Maybe in places like Eastern Kentucky, maybe not elsewhere.
Some of the issues with focusing on the Scots-Irish ethnicity per the Jim Webb viewpoint are: (A) The Scots-Irish are really only a political factor in a few areas of the country, so it wouldn’t help explain Trump’s appeal in places like New England; (b) Trump lacks any of the martial qualities that Web claims is their primary characteristic (McCain or Webb are exemplars); and (c) the wealthy, coastal, urbanite deal-maker is pretty much the kind of politician they would despise. I think there is simply a broader populist impulse at work.
If pure-breed Republicans think Trump and his supporters are stinking up the place, They could tell them to hit the road. It is real easy:
“We do not want you or your supporters stinking up the place. Hit the road, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
Then, just wait for President Cruz. McCain and Romney were not conservative enough for the Obama voters, but Sen. Cruz is a candidate they can get behind.
“When you ain’t got nuthin’, you got nuthin’ to lose.” For Trump supporters, Hillary Clinton, Sen. Sanders, or your pure-breed Republican candidate is more of the same – a foot on the neck or a boot in the teeth. Who knows, President Sanders may socialize dentistry, and they can get the teeth fixed that you all have been knocking out.
It is f*cking hilarious to see the Masters of the Universe shitting all over themselves because of one man. I suspect that they would change the Constitution to allow President Obama a lifetime term if it would keep Trump from becoming President. It is just one little thing they cannot control, but they are going ape-shit. Multiply it by 100 or more, and welcome to a typical Trump supporter’s world.
I think that Michael’s got this mostly right. The number of people who vote in Republican primaries nowadays who are movement conservatives or libertarians is actually pretty small. By far the greater number are social conservatives or just plain disaffected.
For Trump supporters, they do not so much want to “burn the place down” as want to “chop the elites down (to size)”, but Trump is not just a negative. He is also a glimmer of hope. If he can remove some of the worthless dross that has been running the country into the ground, people like his supports might be able to start making a little headway, or at the very least, they will stop losing ground.
I get tired of hearing the Republican elites whining about Trump destroying the Republican party or about the Trump supporters just wanting to break things.
Many of these people claimed refusing to vote is a mortal sin. Well, they got what they wished for.
(On the Democrat side, it just has not started yet. BLM, mostly, but Sen. Sanders, also, are canaries in a coal mine. They are not supposed to happen, but they are.)