Credit: Nicholas Kamm/AFP
More than a year after President Donald Trump won the election, there are still some questions about what drove him to victory: Was it genuine anxiety about the state of the economy? Or was it racism and racial resentment?
Over at the Washington Post, researchers Matthew Fowler, Vladimir Medenica, and Cathy Cohen have published the results of a new survey on these questions, with a focus on the 41 percent of white millennials who voted for Trump and the sense of “white vulnerability” that motivated them. The conclusion is very clear:
Contrary to what some have suggested, white millennial Trump voters were not in more economically precarious situations than non-Trump voters. Fully 86 percent of them reported being employed, a rate similar to non-Trump voters; and they were 14 percent less likely to be low income than white voters who did not support Trump. Employment and income were not significantly related to that sense of white vulnerability.
So what was? Racial resentment.
Even when controlling for partisanship, ideology, region […]
If voting worked why do we have the situation we have today? Particularly, the idea that voting works is difficult to understand in light of numerous studies that demonstrate on a federal level that the voice and opinions of the people matter not at all.
Instead I wholeheartedly advocate the voices of the tactics of the movements for socilal and economic justice that have actually worked in this country and that Stephen mentioned in the intro to the next article ” I urge you to organize your community.”…..That will work. It worked for the American seperation from England and it has worked nonviolently in over 50 maximalist campaigns to oust dictators or foreign invaders in the last 30 years.