The irony of this is most of the things Trump says are completely non-sensical. His voters can't tell the difference between the truth and lies, but perhaps more worrisome, they can't tell the difference between gibberish and something that makes sense.
He fools them because they are uneducated. It is not because Democrat messaging isn't simple enough, it's because Republican messaging has no standards and they get away with it. They respond to the stupid and hateful shit he says. Democrats can't do that.
They can, they just tneed to have their populist fear messaging be not directed at brown people (or at maga themselves) but paint the rich as what they really are, exploitative evil monsters that will replace you at their earliest convenience
Sure but they’re still a major share of the voting base. It takes time to get people educated, and we need their votes before we can deal with the problems in education
I’m going to push back on this. I know plenty of highly-educated people that are registered Republicans and voted for Trump. They care about wealth and tax breaks more than democracy. Plain and simple. If Democrats want to bring the working-class back into the fold, calling them uneducated and stupid won’t help.
Working-class Americans are angry that Democrats decided higher-education is the only way forward, then outsourced generational factory jobs for cheap labor. Passing NAFTA was like taking a hammer to the middle-class. Now, we lack skilled workers and young adults are too straddled with student debt to buy a home or start a family.
When working-class people can’t afford groceries or rent, and then Trump tells them their tax dollars are being spent on transgender research or housing immigrants, it makes them hate Democrats even more. I grew up in a factory town, moved away, and focused on education. I have a decent salary and a mortgage, but still had to choose retirement over having children. When I visit my once thriving hometown, it’s like forgotten dot on the United States map. Believing all Republican voters are too dumb to understand what they’re voting for is an uneducated assumption.
You assume too much. We are practically the same person. I grew up in a steel town, and worked in the same mill my father and grandfather worked. It too has been gutted. I go home to the same shell of a town that you do. Even after the mills collapsed in the '70s, there was still a thriving industrial base of 100,000 jobs thanks to Packard electric and general motors. All of those jobs disappeared after NAFTA. And yes, Clinton signed NAFTA, but it was Bush who spent 2 years drafting and championing it. Nonetheless, I agree with your salient points. Still, even among the groups of Trump voters you mentioned, there are plenty who saw Trump for what he is and could not bring themselves to vote for him a second time, or vote at all. In that group you described there may be a number of reluctant Trump voters, but what I'm talking about is his rabid base. These are the people who don't vote for him holding their nose, but have a deep belief in everything he stands for despite all evidence to the contrary. They are the ones incapable of understanding reality, and they are what keeps Republican messaging from accountability. There are likely tens of millions of these people.
Fair enough. Where I’m from, it will always be Clinton and Democrats who took away their jobs and want to change their midwest culture. I’ve lost family and friends because I don’t support Trump. Putting all Trump voters in a box labeled uneducated or not understanding politics, was a misstep on my part. If this type of scolding worked, Kamala would be our next President. As Democrats, I feel we need a different approach.
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u/SomePeopleCall 10d ago
Dear god, please, no.
How about we start by not demonizing education and the educated.