Is there any category of Trump supporter who can feel shame?

[shanen]

Can't find a matching discussion, so I'll pose the question... Based on my observations, there seem to be four main legs of Trump's little high chair: (1) Government haters, (2) Hillary haters, (3) Bigots, and (4) Racists. Can any of them feel shame at supporting the Donald? If so, how can the shame be increased?

P.S. No matter what Trump thinks, the cute little high chair is not a throne.

P.P.S. A poll on which leg is thickest would have been interesting, but the economic model is not attractive. I've already donated to Bernie, and I don't regret it though it was hopeless, but I'd prefer to buy solutions, not just throw money at a website. How about solution projects after the articles (or linked to related threads), and if enough members support the project it would get funded and DU would get a tithe (after holding the money until then) for project planning, publicity, and reporting on the results.

[piechartking]

1. There's at least another group

Anchor issue babies- trump will nominate the judges they want, and will (theoretically) align with them on abortion, 2nd amendment and traditional marriage.

Everything else is ok as long as those narrow issues are protected.

Interesting idea about a poll but not sure what you mean.

[shanen]

13. Not really the right place to ask the poll, but...

It would be important to know what percentage of Trump's supporters belong to each of the legs. However, this is not the right place to ask because the people here aren't in those groups. Even if most of the people here think that most of Trump's supporters are bigots, that would only reflect the local perception.

However, it might be possible to get a ballpark estimate for the troll population by studying the "auto-removed" posts. I'm guessing that they are detected by some kind of content filters, and the triggers might be correlated to the four groups, or to your proposed fifth group.

By the way, I had some difficulty recognizing "Anchor issue babies" as "single-issue voters", but I'm still thinking that they would map into the four groups based on an analysis of the single issue. For your examples, the 2nd Amendment belongs to government haters, and [anti-]abortion and traditional marriage are key issues for bigots. Your judge example is harder to assess, but I think that "judges they want" is going to correlate with specific issues and ultimately with a single most important issue.

[beachbum bob]

3. those with no feeling of remorse can not be shamed

thats a huge number of trump supporters

[Koinos]

4. I find it quite disturbing.

I find it quite disturbing that at least 30% to 35% of the voting population seems solidly in Trump's corner. Can they all be sociopaths who lack both shame and empathy? It is possible that a great number of these persons do show positive traits toward their families, neighbors, and friends, but are so delusional, ignorant, and uninformed that they cannot be or refuse to be educated about the way things really are. It would drive me to a very dark place of despair, if I were to believe that at least 30% of our adult population is psychopathic or sociopathic. If Trump were to win this election, it would demonstrate that our nation and culture are doomed due to widespread erosion of values that make us human. It would take an epidemic of ignorance and mental illness to elect a Trump.

[shanen]

12. #NextTrumpBook

Saw it on Twitter:

#NextTrumpBook
Surfing the Rising Tide of American Insanity

This doesn't seem to be a rational election, but rather some sort of hatefest. I haven't been visiting DU too much these days, but my conclusion is that the most diagnostic question for a Trump supporter is:

Who do you hate most?

[bettyellen]

18. Their could be positive supportive to family as long as they don't get too uppity and liberal.

[Koinos]

19. Yep, liberals often get a hard time at family gatherings.

[kacekwl]

5. They are just like Trump ,

can not and will not admit they have been wrong about him.

[DUgosh]

7. No empathy

Every fact is an attack and it's about them. However, Hillary, Barrack, Michelle believe and have witnessed that hearts can change. I've decided to believe it too.

[renie408]

8. You are missing a leg...rabid pro lifers.

I have a friend (and she IS a friend!) who is an all around wonderful woman. She works tirelessly for victims of human trafficking, spends her own money to help girls in trouble get cars and apartments and jobs.

She is supporting Trump and despises him. She is very anti-abortion. She says she cannot vote for anyone who is pro-choice and feels like it is her civic duty to vote, so that puts her at Trump.

But from our last few conversations, I think she is close to not voting at all. Which is, honestly, sad.

[B Calm]

9. Any veteran who supports Draft Dodger Trump who makes fun of Blue Star parents

needs to have their head examined.

[Thrill]

10. No. He already told you he could shoot someone

and not lose any votes. And he's proving it

[duncang]

11. Some but barely

I hit 2 of the repub forums. Just to see how they are doing. One forum you know the standard take them dems out no matter what. The only answer is to slash and burn everything. Anarchy is good. Take down the government. Next one pretty much the same ideas just toned down some. And surprisingly more the one view on dipshit donnie, cruz, and destroying everything. At least it wasn't all sovereigns there. But any shame was still muted to a whisper.

[NCTraveler]

14. Yes. There is a group out there who simply want change.

Many of them are now feeling shame and understand simply supporting any agent of change is foolish.

[shanen]

15. Can you define that group?

If you are talking about nihilists or anarchists, then I think they fit into government haters?

However, I think that many of them are beginning to feel a sort of shame. Losing so badly will be quite embarrassing, and it sounds like Trump's campaign is on suicide watch now.

[NCTraveler]

16. I'm talking people who don't pay as much attention...

They couldn't define nihilist and they think anarchy is a stage people go through early in life. We love to define people but the fact is most people don't have deep ideological thoughts.

[Miles Archer]

17. Read the new Clint Eastwood interview in Esquire.

http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a46893/double-trouble-clint-and-scott-eastwood/?src=socialflowTW

Some things can't be explained, but it's as close of a look as you're going to get inside the head of the average Trump supporter.

Trump is an opportunist. He's also a vampire. When he sees an opportunity, he sees weakness...he sees prey. And he exploits that vulnerability to his full advantage because you have three segments of our society.

At one extreme end of the spectrum are the "critical thinkers"...the people who look at life from all sides, inside and out, and question the truth of any "truth" presented to them. They are analytical, they do their homework, they draw their on conclusions. Sometimes those conclusions are based on sound reasoning and a thorough analysis of the facts, sometimes they stack the deck to arrive at the conclusion they want, but they seldom take things art face value.

At the other end of the spectrum you have the people who have been beaten by life, who have short-circuited, either by chemical imbalances in their brain, substance abuse, life circumstances, or all of the above. Critical thinking and rational thought are not tools that they have at their disposal.

And in the middle of the spectrum, you have the majority. These are people who may question things, but never dig too deep. If "face value" is successfully marketed as the truth, they will accept things at "face value." They make decisions based on their emotions and how certain people and situations make them feel.

The fourth group, of course, includes people like Trump, who don't believe a word he's saying but see an opportunity to co-manipulate society for their own gain if they go along for the ride. They will stay engaged until Trump goes so far that they see their own "brand" getting collateral damage as the result of their support. This group includes people like Newt Gingrich.

The Eastwood interview nails it, although not in the way that will make most critical thinkers feel good. People are pissed off, people are tired of "political correctness," people have lost faith in the system. And while the last person they should be looking to for "salvation" is Trump, he is playing to and manipulating their basic fears and anxieties and they simply are not strong enough or intelligent enough to see through his scam. It's the average Fox News viewer who wants to see Obama stand behind the podium and say "We are at war with Radical Islam." and every day, Fox News hammers it into their heads that because he won't say those words, he has personally failed them as a leader. Once a person surrenders their trust, they surrender their tendency to question the person that they trust. That's why Trump supporters put up with all of it. They are convinced that "he alone" can "fix" things. He's a street pimp. He's a con man. He has no desire to see any other human being achieve his level of "success," and that is the exact carrot being dangled in front of voters who don't have what they want and see no other way of getting it.

You will never connect the dots and "understand" why his supporters sign off on every word that comes out of his mouth. He's cast a spell on them, and I don't see that spell being broken any time between now and November. It them becomes a matter of how many people in that large, majority group of voters are going to be able to have their wake up call and see exactly what kind of bill of goods has been placed on the table...things like asking why, if we have nukes, we can't use them.

[shanen]

20. Does Trump play 3D chess?

Your interesting comment increases my speculation that Trump is just playing a game. His "story line" for the election needs drama, falling behind and then battling to a peak on Election Day.

As you note, his hardcore supporters are not going to change their minds. Even if they notice his lies, they think he is speaking the truth when he says what they want to hear, and all of the lies are for the other suckers that Trump is conning.

The key to winning the election is to capture the low-attention, low-interest voters on Election Day. That's even closely related to the "act presidential" thing. What is their memory span? Two weeks? Then two weeks of acting presidential before the election will be sufficient for his purposes. He doesn't need to fool most of the people most of the time, just 51% of the actual voters on Election Day. (Actually much less than that with the so-called Republican gerrymandering and the Senatorial distortion.)