I was born working class, got a PhD, and married “up.” I also voted for Trump. One thing that never gets mentioned is his humor. The nicknames, the hyperbole - it’s what I, and I expect a lot of his voters - grew up with. Part of what’s so off-putting about Harris & Co is the complete *lack* of anything resembling a sense of humor.
That is so true. The left cancels humor every chance they get. Humor is a higher order cognitive function, among the many that currenty reside beyond their grasp.
remember when Biden implied his uncle was eaten by cannibals in New Guinea... shortly after that Trump started talking about the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter/cannibal - great sense of humor there!!!
“Democrats to theorize that Trump voters had simply chosen autocracy over democracy, a bleak house over a bright one.
Perhaps that was true of many of Trump’s hardest-core, most right-wing supporters. “
Rob, that is garbage. Don’t even dignify that slur with speculative credibility. Dems are the party of censorship, which is autocratic. Trump will end that, which supports individual freedom. Dem claims to reverse that dynamic are lies, and voters realuze that. Let that sink in.
I was going to vote Libertarian, again, this yr, but one newsletter writer, who doesn't usually focus on politics increasingly began linking more and more to political 'news'. One he linked was to an Axios headline: "Almost 1 out of 5 Republicans think Trump should encourage violence if he loses the election". I commented, suggesting the newsletter writer should NOT repost that unless he edits, saying: "Over 4 out of 5 Republicans think Trump should NOT encourage violence if he loses the election". That person never thought anything was wrong w/ posting that headline. I know a lot of Trump supporters, who initially did not want him, but once he was the nominee, supported him, saying they supported the policies. But as the hate of Trump kept building, they kept digging in deeper. So that post sent ME over the edge, w/ that rhetoric - I read it the day I was going in to vote early & I voted for Trump.
Another weekly newsletter I receive is written by a psychologist & it usually has nothing to do w/ politics, but quotes. One week, the topic was the Golden Rule, then he went on to quote Walz who had just been selected as Harris's VP. I first clarified that I was not going to vote for either, then commented about how Walz set up the hot line to turn in your neighbors during COVID, & left that line up for a long time, with the recording of a neighbor turning in church members meeting for a luncheon - not very "golden rulish". Well, the dear Dr. censored me, deleted my comments. Told me not to make political comments. Since then many Democrats commenting on his site are making political comments, which he leaves up. I no longer join in. It's his site. He can do what he wants w/ it.
Rob, you need to be careful about ham-handed throw away comments like above. They invite misinterpretation and fail to convey a nuanced understanding. You can do better.
In this new world of changing definitions, the Dems define Trump winning a primary against DeSantis and others as “autocracy”, while secret Dem donors deciding to push Biden to drop and immediately crowning Harris, without debate or voting, is “ Democratic”.
I certainly prefer the Trump selection process—but claim that objectively it was more democratic than what the Dems did.
That Dem belief was actually a Luxury Belief.
With almost 75 million voters supporting it. All of those voters should be laughed at, constantly.
Normal folk don’t want to live in a world where everything is political, where the personal is political.
Many see the Dems as a bigger threat to democracy, supporting anarcho-tyranny, than Trump.
And most middle class workers DO want to Get Rich, and like humor and a fun life. Trump was much more positive than the Dems, with their 8 years of crying wolf against Trump the Hitler Demon.
I do think that many wealthy progressive whites only saw video clips of Trump ranting. The media they see (amplified by GOOGLE and on social media) interpreted everything Trump said literally. They were all competing for the much higher dollars raised from the progressive elites, motivated them to show what their audience wanted to see, with a chilling effect on the Substacks progressives subscribe to. None were motivated to provide a more realistic analysis. They didnt want to lose subscribers!
When I shared substacks with very well-reasoned analysis, yours, The Free Press, Colemans, it planted a tiny seed of doubt, but the cult-like logic of these progressive concepts and personas is very powerful.
I sense some reserve in your Boston Globe pieces. Maybe thats the effect if their editors.
This article is one of the best explanations of why Trump won I have read. Kamala Harris’s opening ad actually got to the heart of it when she said, “In this election, we each face a question: what kind of country do we want to live in?” The answer was clear—Americans chose Trump’s vision over the Biden/Harris/Obama vision for themselves, their families, and their businesses.
1) When they say that people chose racism, sexism, fascism, etc. to get cheaper eggs, they ignore that for some people cheaper groceries is literally an existential issue. If nothing else makes one yell "check your privilege", that has to be it. To look at it from a different angle, the former "isms" are debatable. Whether you have too much month at the end of the money is not.
2) When they try to guilt "men" into thinking of their wives, sisters, daughters, etc., Laken Riley's (et al.) dad may have a different conclusion.
3) If you talk trash about half of the electorate, don't expect them to vote for you. It's that simple. They're not going to grovel and kiss your butt in the face of the mean-girl politics of shunning and withholding approval. They're going to flip you the bird and tell you to perform an anatomical impossibility.
About two months before the election, one respected pollster found that about half of the people who thought democracy was at risk in the last election thought the Dems were more to blame. This was borne out in the exit polling.
"For a generation, Democrats have confidently predicted that they are on the brink of an era of electoral dominance. Demographic trends appear to support this belief"
A few things.
One - there is a pile of evidence that supports the theory that Democrats have been cheating in ballot counting. All but one of the states that went for Harris lack voter-ID laws, and allow mail in ballots and same day voter registration. 85% of OECD country ban mass mail in ballots and same day voter registration for good reasons.
Two - there were 8.5 million more votes cast in the 2020 election than the 2024 election. Joe Biden hid in his basement while Trump filled arenas and got more votes that any other candidate except Joe Biden that election. Even so, Democrats needed Harris to break the tie in the Senate. The point here is that Democrat's have been unattractive as a political party since 2010 despite Obama's re-election to a second term. That was more a point about the terrible candidates put up by the old GOP necons that were also disliked. The Democrats lied to themselves that 2020 was proof that the electorate was buying their dog food. They would have been better off losing the 2020 election and thus would have had a head start on the reforms they needed. Instead they blew it in over-playing their popularity continually lying to themselves that their platform and party was popular... and when they lost in 2024 they were shocked and dumfounded.
Three - The Democrat's timing for becoming the party of big money (83 billionaires supported Harris) was also bad as beginning with the 2016 election, in addition to the rejection of the radical cultural bits of the Democrat platform, the voters were up in arms against the corporatist Globalist Regime... and the Democrats were tagged with the shift from the GOP being the party of big business to the Democrats having that target on their back.
There is another consideration here related to #2 above... the Republicans are going to likely pass national voter ID. I think this will do a reset to the REAL state of the electorate and will turn many blue counties to purple and some to red. The likely real truth is that today Democrats are much more disliked than the voting records demonstrate.
Support, 100%, a national voter ID requirement - as well as proof of citizenship in order to register to vote (presently required in Arizona only - as verified incidents in this past election cycle show, we cannot take this for granted - and, in today’s digital world, it is easy to obtain and provide proof of citizenship - we could even use E verify). Will look forward to seeing the results of such initiatives (I don’t think we have enough data, at present, to understand whether there is presently a real problem - but I will be happy if we simply avoid a material problem developing).
They've been selling themselves as an intellectual class of expert and leaders, and they may be that, but they forgot the most important aspect of that role was to understand and communicate with the people they were supposed to be leading. Instead of reevaluating their behaviors and perspectives they lashed out. A similar analog can be drawn to the French Revolution.
I believe they were doomed to fail from the beginning, they misunderstood one if not the primary founding principle of this country is the complete and total rejection of the priest class. The desire to escape the authoritarian rule of the religious and government bureaucrats in Europe was what drove many of the first settlers here.
Much of what we speak of as "Freedom" in America is the freedom from unelected authorities telling you how you can or should live your life.
Nice to see your work in The Boston Globe. I agree with your assessment, another interesting point is that Trump positioned himself as a cheerleader for the citizens, it’s a great feeling to have a presidential candidate refer to himself and his listeners as “we” and ally himself with every listener. It’s been too long since we’ve had an advocate for us, as a nation, demonstrating that in spite of our differences we still form a cohesive team. Of course this might be all great speechwriting and slogans, but people are struggling in many different ways and it’s a good message to hear of optimism and support. He is an actor, and Ronald Reagan was also an actor, both accomplished successful presidential campaigns. Calvin Coolidge biography had also said that his ability to give good speeches was a talent he cultivated and ultimately led him to the White House. For good or bad, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. We have run out of tolerance for endless scolding and chastisement by people we do not know and who have never met us personally.
You wrote "Recently, in The New York Times, Ezra Klein pointed out that progressives scorn anyone within their ranks who engages with Joe Rogan’s audience, the most popular podcast in the country. The Harris campaign missed a critical opportunity to engage with men."
I strongly suspect that had Harris gone on the Joe Rogan podcast, she would have lost by an even greater margin.
There's a lot of truth in this analysis, but I would also argue that people in the heartland voted for Trump because he's a New York City conman who grifted them. That, after all, is most likely what happened to the people who signed up for Trump University.
Like you, I went to Yale from a lower- (we used to call it “working-“) class background, and there’s no one Yalies hate more than working whites. White ethnics are a special treat, because they let people on the Vineyard finally let loose on all those people with execrable taste and smelly, weird food without any risk of being finally outed as racist. I was told repeatedly that the rich are more moral than the poor(!) and I should learn from them by bowing to my black and Hispanic classmates, whose parents earned five times what mine did at minimum.
The upper classes look at working people the way the British used to roll their eyes at the wogs without ever venturing an inch outside of their bungalows.
Coining terms is important for influencing the debates. Maybe “symbolic capitalism” or “totemic capital” might become a breakthru phrase to accurately describe some reality. I’m sorry that Sowell’s “Vision of the Anointed” didn’t become such a phrase, but glad for “luxury beliefs”.
I’m sure that a slowly increasing focus on “moral superiority” is where psychology will be intersecting with politics and laws and social norms and non-legal social punishments.
Trump voters are supporting the older Christian capitalist morals over the newer woke morals, and wanting to go back. One important morality is that of support for Free Speech—it was better before, like the 70s with “Blazing Saddles” than today. Returning to a better free speech morality is very optimistic.
Yes, the Democrats would have "to reach out to them" (working class voters) but in the process give up their cosmopolitan, neoliberal religion (secular worldview) along with all the extra income it it generates for them. Their donor class won't stand for that.
I was born working class, got a PhD, and married “up.” I also voted for Trump. One thing that never gets mentioned is his humor. The nicknames, the hyperbole - it’s what I, and I expect a lot of his voters - grew up with. Part of what’s so off-putting about Harris & Co is the complete *lack* of anything resembling a sense of humor.
That is so true. The left cancels humor every chance they get. Humor is a higher order cognitive function, among the many that currenty reside beyond their grasp.
remember when Biden implied his uncle was eaten by cannibals in New Guinea... shortly after that Trump started talking about the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter/cannibal - great sense of humor there!!!
“Democrats to theorize that Trump voters had simply chosen autocracy over democracy, a bleak house over a bright one.
Perhaps that was true of many of Trump’s hardest-core, most right-wing supporters. “
Rob, that is garbage. Don’t even dignify that slur with speculative credibility. Dems are the party of censorship, which is autocratic. Trump will end that, which supports individual freedom. Dem claims to reverse that dynamic are lies, and voters realuze that. Let that sink in.
true. I subscribe to a variety of newsletters.
I was going to vote Libertarian, again, this yr, but one newsletter writer, who doesn't usually focus on politics increasingly began linking more and more to political 'news'. One he linked was to an Axios headline: "Almost 1 out of 5 Republicans think Trump should encourage violence if he loses the election". I commented, suggesting the newsletter writer should NOT repost that unless he edits, saying: "Over 4 out of 5 Republicans think Trump should NOT encourage violence if he loses the election". That person never thought anything was wrong w/ posting that headline. I know a lot of Trump supporters, who initially did not want him, but once he was the nominee, supported him, saying they supported the policies. But as the hate of Trump kept building, they kept digging in deeper. So that post sent ME over the edge, w/ that rhetoric - I read it the day I was going in to vote early & I voted for Trump.
Another weekly newsletter I receive is written by a psychologist & it usually has nothing to do w/ politics, but quotes. One week, the topic was the Golden Rule, then he went on to quote Walz who had just been selected as Harris's VP. I first clarified that I was not going to vote for either, then commented about how Walz set up the hot line to turn in your neighbors during COVID, & left that line up for a long time, with the recording of a neighbor turning in church members meeting for a luncheon - not very "golden rulish". Well, the dear Dr. censored me, deleted my comments. Told me not to make political comments. Since then many Democrats commenting on his site are making political comments, which he leaves up. I no longer join in. It's his site. He can do what he wants w/ it.
Agreed.
Rob, you need to be careful about ham-handed throw away comments like above. They invite misinterpretation and fail to convey a nuanced understanding. You can do better.
In this new world of changing definitions, the Dems define Trump winning a primary against DeSantis and others as “autocracy”, while secret Dem donors deciding to push Biden to drop and immediately crowning Harris, without debate or voting, is “ Democratic”.
I certainly prefer the Trump selection process—but claim that objectively it was more democratic than what the Dems did.
That Dem belief was actually a Luxury Belief.
With almost 75 million voters supporting it. All of those voters should be laughed at, constantly.
You are absolutely right!
Normal folk don’t want to live in a world where everything is political, where the personal is political.
Many see the Dems as a bigger threat to democracy, supporting anarcho-tyranny, than Trump.
And most middle class workers DO want to Get Rich, and like humor and a fun life. Trump was much more positive than the Dems, with their 8 years of crying wolf against Trump the Hitler Demon.
I do think that many wealthy progressive whites only saw video clips of Trump ranting. The media they see (amplified by GOOGLE and on social media) interpreted everything Trump said literally. They were all competing for the much higher dollars raised from the progressive elites, motivated them to show what their audience wanted to see, with a chilling effect on the Substacks progressives subscribe to. None were motivated to provide a more realistic analysis. They didnt want to lose subscribers!
When I shared substacks with very well-reasoned analysis, yours, The Free Press, Colemans, it planted a tiny seed of doubt, but the cult-like logic of these progressive concepts and personas is very powerful.
I sense some reserve in your Boston Globe pieces. Maybe thats the effect if their editors.
This article is one of the best explanations of why Trump won I have read. Kamala Harris’s opening ad actually got to the heart of it when she said, “In this election, we each face a question: what kind of country do we want to live in?” The answer was clear—Americans chose Trump’s vision over the Biden/Harris/Obama vision for themselves, their families, and their businesses.
The Progressive Left just doesn't get it.
1) When they say that people chose racism, sexism, fascism, etc. to get cheaper eggs, they ignore that for some people cheaper groceries is literally an existential issue. If nothing else makes one yell "check your privilege", that has to be it. To look at it from a different angle, the former "isms" are debatable. Whether you have too much month at the end of the money is not.
2) When they try to guilt "men" into thinking of their wives, sisters, daughters, etc., Laken Riley's (et al.) dad may have a different conclusion.
3) If you talk trash about half of the electorate, don't expect them to vote for you. It's that simple. They're not going to grovel and kiss your butt in the face of the mean-girl politics of shunning and withholding approval. They're going to flip you the bird and tell you to perform an anatomical impossibility.
About two months before the election, one respected pollster found that about half of the people who thought democracy was at risk in the last election thought the Dems were more to blame. This was borne out in the exit polling.
More than half in exits IIRC.
"For a generation, Democrats have confidently predicted that they are on the brink of an era of electoral dominance. Demographic trends appear to support this belief"
A few things.
One - there is a pile of evidence that supports the theory that Democrats have been cheating in ballot counting. All but one of the states that went for Harris lack voter-ID laws, and allow mail in ballots and same day voter registration. 85% of OECD country ban mass mail in ballots and same day voter registration for good reasons.
Two - there were 8.5 million more votes cast in the 2020 election than the 2024 election. Joe Biden hid in his basement while Trump filled arenas and got more votes that any other candidate except Joe Biden that election. Even so, Democrats needed Harris to break the tie in the Senate. The point here is that Democrat's have been unattractive as a political party since 2010 despite Obama's re-election to a second term. That was more a point about the terrible candidates put up by the old GOP necons that were also disliked. The Democrats lied to themselves that 2020 was proof that the electorate was buying their dog food. They would have been better off losing the 2020 election and thus would have had a head start on the reforms they needed. Instead they blew it in over-playing their popularity continually lying to themselves that their platform and party was popular... and when they lost in 2024 they were shocked and dumfounded.
Three - The Democrat's timing for becoming the party of big money (83 billionaires supported Harris) was also bad as beginning with the 2016 election, in addition to the rejection of the radical cultural bits of the Democrat platform, the voters were up in arms against the corporatist Globalist Regime... and the Democrats were tagged with the shift from the GOP being the party of big business to the Democrats having that target on their back.
There is another consideration here related to #2 above... the Republicans are going to likely pass national voter ID. I think this will do a reset to the REAL state of the electorate and will turn many blue counties to purple and some to red. The likely real truth is that today Democrats are much more disliked than the voting records demonstrate.
Support, 100%, a national voter ID requirement - as well as proof of citizenship in order to register to vote (presently required in Arizona only - as verified incidents in this past election cycle show, we cannot take this for granted - and, in today’s digital world, it is easy to obtain and provide proof of citizenship - we could even use E verify). Will look forward to seeing the results of such initiatives (I don’t think we have enough data, at present, to understand whether there is presently a real problem - but I will be happy if we simply avoid a material problem developing).
They've been selling themselves as an intellectual class of expert and leaders, and they may be that, but they forgot the most important aspect of that role was to understand and communicate with the people they were supposed to be leading. Instead of reevaluating their behaviors and perspectives they lashed out. A similar analog can be drawn to the French Revolution.
I believe they were doomed to fail from the beginning, they misunderstood one if not the primary founding principle of this country is the complete and total rejection of the priest class. The desire to escape the authoritarian rule of the religious and government bureaucrats in Europe was what drove many of the first settlers here.
Much of what we speak of as "Freedom" in America is the freedom from unelected authorities telling you how you can or should live your life.
Nice to see your work in The Boston Globe. I agree with your assessment, another interesting point is that Trump positioned himself as a cheerleader for the citizens, it’s a great feeling to have a presidential candidate refer to himself and his listeners as “we” and ally himself with every listener. It’s been too long since we’ve had an advocate for us, as a nation, demonstrating that in spite of our differences we still form a cohesive team. Of course this might be all great speechwriting and slogans, but people are struggling in many different ways and it’s a good message to hear of optimism and support. He is an actor, and Ronald Reagan was also an actor, both accomplished successful presidential campaigns. Calvin Coolidge biography had also said that his ability to give good speeches was a talent he cultivated and ultimately led him to the White House. For good or bad, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. We have run out of tolerance for endless scolding and chastisement by people we do not know and who have never met us personally.
You wrote "Recently, in The New York Times, Ezra Klein pointed out that progressives scorn anyone within their ranks who engages with Joe Rogan’s audience, the most popular podcast in the country. The Harris campaign missed a critical opportunity to engage with men."
I strongly suspect that had Harris gone on the Joe Rogan podcast, she would have lost by an even greater margin.
Just thought about this yesterday. I think you're right.
There's a lot of truth in this analysis, but I would also argue that people in the heartland voted for Trump because he's a New York City conman who grifted them. That, after all, is most likely what happened to the people who signed up for Trump University.
Like you, I went to Yale from a lower- (we used to call it “working-“) class background, and there’s no one Yalies hate more than working whites. White ethnics are a special treat, because they let people on the Vineyard finally let loose on all those people with execrable taste and smelly, weird food without any risk of being finally outed as racist. I was told repeatedly that the rich are more moral than the poor(!) and I should learn from them by bowing to my black and Hispanic classmates, whose parents earned five times what mine did at minimum.
The upper classes look at working people the way the British used to roll their eyes at the wogs without ever venturing an inch outside of their bungalows.
Rob, your Luxury Beliefs book needs to written soon if it is to be part of New Thinking. Here’s a review of a closely related book just published:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/review-of-we-have-never-been-woke-by-musa-al-gharbi
Coining terms is important for influencing the debates. Maybe “symbolic capitalism” or “totemic capital” might become a breakthru phrase to accurately describe some reality. I’m sorry that Sowell’s “Vision of the Anointed” didn’t become such a phrase, but glad for “luxury beliefs”.
I’m sure that a slowly increasing focus on “moral superiority” is where psychology will be intersecting with politics and laws and social norms and non-legal social punishments.
Trump voters are supporting the older Christian capitalist morals over the newer woke morals, and wanting to go back. One important morality is that of support for Free Speech—it was better before, like the 70s with “Blazing Saddles” than today. Returning to a better free speech morality is very optimistic.
Yes, the Democrats would have "to reach out to them" (working class voters) but in the process give up their cosmopolitan, neoliberal religion (secular worldview) along with all the extra income it it generates for them. Their donor class won't stand for that.
Democrats think “reaching out” means dumbing down so even *those people* can understand.
Actually could there have possibly been two more illusive people running on the Democrat ticket.