A Story for Adventurous Journalist-Pundits: Trump is Struggling in the South Because Yankee

[alcibiades_mystery]

Last edited Wed Oct 19, 2016, 08:25 AM - Edit history (1)

Journos seemed to love these kind of "culture" angles when it came to Obama. Why not Trump? Trump is running well behind previous Republican candidates in the South, beating only Dole, who lost numerous southern states. We have good data on this. He's going to lose Virginia for sure and probably North Carolina, and he's even being challenged effectively in Georgia. His margins in some other southern states (Louisiana) are smaller than expected.

Listen, Trump will win the South because he's a Republican, but why is he so unpopular there, even as a Republican running against Clinton? Isn't this the kind of lazy question that political journalists always used to ask about Obama?

Here's your answer: he has coarse Yankee manners. His New Yahwkism is hurting him with Southerners. He's coarse and abrasive. He's curt. He tawks too fast. He's not even genteel Upper West. He's pure Queens. (Disclaimer: so am I!)

Come on, political journalists! Get on it.

[Vogon_Glory]

1. Quoth The Lame-Stream Beltway Media Pundit

What, a meme we didn't invent or appropriate from what WE consider a respectable source? Nothing to see here, move along.

[Fast Walker 52]

2. I was wondering about that

[MadCrow]

3. He's struggling everywhere

because, as my 101 year old mother said at her birthday party on Saturday, he has no "couth".

[DetlefK]

5. That's an interesting question indeed. Does religion play a role?

His coarse manners, his big-city-arrogance (despite him being sold as a "blue collar billionaire&quot , the neverending bragging and belittling...

I wonder about the role of religion. Trump is obviously and in no way a Christian: He's a fraud.
He knows jack-shit about the Bible.
He's the opposite of the christian ideal of a loving and humble man.
He has none of the neoplatonic christian virtues: wisdom, fairness, self-control, courage.

And there is a widening chasm between Evangelicals who reject Trump for religious reasons and Evangelicals who are looking for excuses to Support him.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Yes, perhaps

He's clearly the least religious candidate as well. He's a secular New Yawkah.

Also, why is he losing his home state? Wasn't this a disaster for Gore, for Edwards? Losing his home state by a landslide? Where they know him best? Where are the punditry?

[DetlefK]

7. Trump dreamed of winning NY even as his staffers said it's impossible.

He insisted that NY is up for grabs, long after his own staffers conceded that it's a sure win for HRC.

Losing NY to Clinton will be a particular thorn in his side.

[dawg]

8. He's underperforming in the South because of women.

I don't think the region's religiosity, or the candidate's "Northerness", has much to do with it at all.