Culture not economics determined the 2016 race

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Earlier this month, the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group’s Lee Drutman released a fascinating study that challenged many of the dominant assumptions about the 2016 election. Drutman’s data suggested that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders voters were largely aligned on economic issues, and that the 2016 election was decided by issues of culture and identity, rather than economics. Drutman concluded that Donald Trump’s victory largely stemmed from his ability to drive populists to the polls by hammering home the importance of protecting America’s cultural identity and keeping immigrants out of the country.


The VSG study also explains the mystery behind the Obama-Trump voter—that odd figure who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016. According to Drutman’s studies, these were voters who simultaneously held prejudicial votes and relatively liberal economic views. In 2008 and 2012, they were forced to prioritize their values and, without a candidate running an explicitly prejudicial campaign, largely came down on the side of the Democrats. In Donald Trump, however, these populists found a political unicorn: a candidate who shared both their right-leaning cultural values and their left-leaning economic ones.

...

https://newrepublic.com/article/143519/culture-became-main-fault-line-american-politics


Cliff's Notes

The Trump Davidians hate glbtq people, immigrants, African Americans, emancipated women, Hispanics and us.

[cilla4progress]

1. Agreed

how does the Democratic party balance support for social positions that are anathema to the blue collar right who should be a natural constituency considering our economic positions?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. We win without them

We put together a coalition of enlightened white voters and minorities.

It's the coalition Barack Obama won two Electoral College landslides with .

We just need our people to vote. There are more of us.

[dalton99a]

2. Kick.

[CincyDem]

4. Yep.

Cliff notes hit the spot.

To me, this raises what I expect to be a long term issue for the vitality of our party.

Trump ran against "The Other", appealing primarily to a straight white population that has come to rely on their white privilege as a key element of their identity - either consciously or subconsciously. What they know is that they are fast moving into the role of minority (vs. "The Other&quot that puts the benefits of being straight white at risk. Coincidentally, the lower the education and skill levels, the greater the role of white privilege plays in defining identity. They are a highly cohesive group, easily identified by their singular skin color and, as with all tribes, they are prepared (even willing) to give up the community benefits (health care, welfare, environment, worker safety) for the tribal benefits (white is right). Think about why the ponytail that Russia destroyed our electoral process is not an issue with this group - to see the answer, look at Putin...is he wearing this group "identifier".

The Other is the cultural salad bowl of American that demographers predict will be the majority by 2040 Unfortunately, The Other lacks a cohesive source of identity. As a result, there isn't a singular unifying message, a tribal code if you will, that allows The Other to assert it's majority role in the political arena. Successful "others" in our society have done so because of who they are rather than what they are.

We are the party of The Other. Trump honed that to a fine point in 2016. Just like the optical illusion of the two women's faces vs. the vase in the middle, by defining one side of the struggle with such precision, he defined the other - - if we choose to see it. If Trump Davidians, as you called them (probably appropriately so) are the vase, Democrats are the faces of the two women.

Trump Davidians are not the majority in this country...but as long as they retain cohesiveness in the face of our fragmentation, they will be the leadership.

Trump is the sadness on this country that has arisen from successfully exploiting that fragmentation. The most obvious is the HRC vs. Bernie "wings" of the party. Until we can create a cohesive "tribe" of others that can focus on where we want to go versus where we came from, we're going to be saddled with Trump and Trump-like leadership.

On edit: I would add that until the Democratic Party as a group can shift from tolerance (i.e. The Big Tent that lets everyone it) to proactive inclusion (The Big Tent that actively pursues and actively accepts everyone in it), we going to be watching the country's decisions get made at the big boy table where the tribal cohesion overpowers any personal "pet peeves" individuals may have. Republicans thrive on finding 51% agreement among themselves to move forward - Democrats fail on finding 1% disagreement among themselves to argue. (And that's why we're more susceptible to the siren song of the third party).

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. In other words our coalition is bigger but not as unified.

We are connected by ideals. They are connected by blood and soil. America for all its flaws was formed on the former and was to be a rejection of the latter. Anybody can be an American.

[roamer65]

5. Right-leaning cultural values, left-leaning economic ones.

That my friends is Nazi Germany.

[Va Lefty]

7. And the Nazi propaganda machine was nothing compared to RW radio and faux news

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. It's National Socialism without the Socialism.

As my friend rug points out the more nationalism intrudes the more socialism recedes.

Here's the irony. Fascism had some initial popularity because it delivered goodies to in groups. Trump offered the promise of goodies to in groups but immediately upon election aligned himself with conservatives who want to take away the meager goodies they have.

[H2O Man]

10. Solid points.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

22. The Nazis were capitalists. They opposed liberals, socialists and communists.

Jews were associated with communists among other propaganda that was spewed against them.

[H2O Man]

6. Culture includes economics.

They are not separate.

[JHan]

12. I doubt anyone would argue differently ,

Culture/attitudes affect choices we make in allocating resources. The data is just showing that Trump supporters were motivated by what they saw as "cultural threats" - and those who were less affluent connected economic stress to what they perceived as cultural threats.

And we aren't talking about poor people necessarily - Average income of your Trump supporter last I checked was around 70k.

[FBaggins]

11. Economics is part of culture. Nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. One can be culturally conservative and economically liberal.

I was told at another board by a refugee from our party that we can't have nice things like universal health care because covering immigrants makes it too costly.

[FBaggins]

23. One can also be liberal on some cultural issues and not on others

That doesn't change the fact that "culture" necessarily includes economic systems.

[Honeycombe8]

14. I think he won because of Russia, not culture.

There is evidence to indicate that might have been the case. It is not sour grapes.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. I think he won because of Comey. That likely wan't the intention of his actions but the result.

[Honeycombe8]

20. That certainly played a part. But the hacking is what made it so close, so that Comey's

October surprise made a difference. The polls dipped but not much after Comey's October surprise.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. Don't forget Hill won the pop vote but the dip hurt her in the EC.

[Saviolo]

15. Culture read as: racist, sexist, homophobic

Is basically what we're saying here. The "alt-right" (a term I hate, because it softens the fact that they are racist white nationalists and in many cases actual neo-nazis) was able to hide behind "economic insecurity" because the media refused to lift the veil in some sort of misplaced ideal of "respect" and "civility" that prevented them from calling a spade a spade.

We've been screaming this for ages. Donald Trump was the Birther In Chief for a long long time, and if anyone tries to tell you that birtherism isn't racist at its very core, they are either irredeemably ignorant or bald-facedly lying to you. The first press conference that Trump had to announce his candidacy he insinuated that Mexican immigrants were immigrants because they weren't good people. I don't need to reiterate the catalogue of obscene memes that Trump's campaign and followers ascribe to, we all know it. The media organizations have no right to be shocked and surprised at this point.

[bucolic_frolic]

17. We led with our chin

Yes, rights for the oppressed are important. LGBTQ rights are as important as
any minority.

Washington telling people who can and where to go to the bathroom did not play well
among uneducated rural populations.

We lost a culture war.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. This is supported by an interesting study of aggregated search data correlated with voting

What Google Searches Reveal about the Human Psyche

Transcript and you can hear the segment. I found some more links, posted at the end of the excerpts.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-20-2017-1.4164559/june-20-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4169712#segment3

excerpts of transcript:

my next guest says you shouldn't let social media make you feel bad about your life. In fact he has studied millions of Google searches and gained some surprising insights into people's real lives. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a former Google data scientist. He's a contributing op ed writer for The New York Times and he's the author of Everybody Lies: Big Data New Data And What The Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. And Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is joining us from Atlanta, Georgia. Hello.

...

AMT: Is this information that Google has that you got or did you go on Google and figure it out?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: This is data that they aggregate the search data and they give it to searchers.

AMT: Okay. So what did you learn about racism in the U.S. by examining Internet searches?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes. So there is a disturbing element to some of this research. When people are lying, one of the ways people lie is they make themselves look better and they don't admit their racist tendencies. So the comparison on Google is depressing even horrifying, the frequency with which Americans make racist searches, are predominantly looking for jokes mocking African-Americans. And these searches predict very very strongly various political behaviors voting patterns.

AMT: You can make the connection?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yeah. So for example places that made these searches in highest numbers, there were most likely to make racist searches where there is almost perfect relationship between the volume of these searches and support for Donald Trump in the Republican primary. So it's really clear in this data that racism played a huge role in Trump's rise even if people wouldn't admit that.

AMT: And you also looked at what people were searching for right after Barack Obama was elected in 2008. What did you find?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes. I mean another one where people you know on TV or in everyday conversation, people are saying whatever they thought of Obama's policies or positions that it was moving that we had an African-American president. But you see it the same period that searches for really really racially charged jokes mocking African-Americans were rising to their highest levels yet. And one in 100 searches on the night that Obama was elected with the word Obama also included the N word or KKK. So really a very very different in the privacy of their own homes, Americans were reacting to this event much differently than they were publicly proclaiming they were reacting.

AMT: And that was rather than using the phraseology like first black president or the like celebratory phrase.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Exactly. More people are making more searches kind of disturbed by having an African-American president than excited about having an African-American president.

AMT: And so let's get back to what you said about the election of Donald Trump and what you learned about who voted for him. Tell me a little bit more of what you saw.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well, I think one thing that happened is you see how people responded when Obama was president. So the racist searches people were also searching for and eventually joining a website called Stormfront which is a white nationalist website. And you see kind of a direct relationship that these people who were antagonized by Obama's election and motivated to join these white nationalist websites or make racist searches then put Trump over the edge in the Republican primary.

AMT: And how do you know that you're making the right conclusion with that data?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Well, you have to be definitely careful when you're using statistics and data but there are a lot of tools that data scientists have to control for other variables. You can see is there something else about these areas that explain the relationship? Is it because these areas have more elderly people, or more people with fewer years of education or more people own guns or more people who attend church? And you control for all these variables and nothing explains the result. The only thing that really explains the result is the racism.

AMT: You also looked at clues before the election on voter turnout for Hillary Clinton, that are may be down.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Yes exactly. So if you ask people in a survey: “Are you going to vote in an election?”, just about everybody says yes but then only about 55 percent of Americans actually turn out to vote. So you can't really know from a survey who is going to be in the 55 percent who vote and who is going to be in the 45 percent who don't vote. But you can see on Google. People make searches in the weeks leading up to Election Day. They search for how to vote or where to vote or polling places, and these searches predict very very strongly how high turnout will be. And what we saw in this previous election, in the 2016 election, is that in cities with large African-American populations were 90 or 95 percent of the population is black, there was a large drop in searches for voting information, searches for how to vote or where to vote. So it was very clear from the search data that black turnout was going to be substantially down compared to previous elections. And since African-Americans support Democrats 85 or 90 percent of the time, this was a terrible sign for Hillary Clinton and one of the reasons she did so much worse than polls predicted.

AMT: Because that that did carry out during the election, right?

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: Exactly. The black turnout was way down.

AMT: If her people had been looking at the data you were looking at they would have seen that coming.

SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ: They would have seen that coming and maybe put more energy into getting black turnout up.

---

http://sethsd.com/research/

NPR Transcript of another interview:
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=526399881

Persuasive proof that America is full of racist and selfish people - Vox
https://www.vox.com/conversations/2017/6/13/15768622/facebook-social-media-seth-stephens-davidowitz-everybody-lies
Jun 13, 2017 - “Google is a digital truth serum,” Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of ... that suggested Trump was far more serious than many supposed.

Vox Calls Americans 'Racist' Over Google Searches | The Daily Caller {Right Wing reaction}
http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/13/vox-calls-americans-selfish-and-racist-due-to-google-searches/
Jun 13, 2017 - Stephens-Davidowitz research shows “searches containing racist ... and equates the search data as “clues” Trump was a “serious” contender.

[sharedvalues]

19. Of course. And the culture wars wouldn't work without GOP media - Fox, right-wing radio

GOP media - Fox, right-wing radio, Breitbart, IJR, Wash Times, NY Post, Drudge, Alex Jones - a ton of desperate hate-mongers telling lies to grasp at power.