Any Trump fans?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to ask this for a while. I've heard lots of opinions on Trump from people leaning towards both sides of the spectrum (and in between), but curiously, I can't say I've noticed anyone clearly stating that they support Trump in this election. Indeed, there doesn't seem to be many Trump supporters on LJ in general, either. I mean, there were at least a couple of folks who I "thought" were Trump supporters but then I realized they were actually seeing the light and realizing that the man is an idiot who isn't prepared to run the most powerful country in the world.

So is LJ actually devoid of Trump supporters, or I'm just frequenting the "wrong" places?

Also, if you are on any other political forums, including off LJ, could you say your experience is different? I mean, are there more or less Trump supporters on other online platforms than on LJ? You don't have to name specific names, users, forums or websites if you don't want to. I'm just trying to form an opinion if Trump actually has any sort of online ground movement, like Ron Paul did. As it seems to be most rampant on Facebook and Twitter, mostly involving people who don't seem to necessarily follow politics closely (we're political junkies over here for the most part), or even people who'd go on a discussion board to learn or share thoughts on politics on a daily basis. Your observations?

Comments

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

You mean you don't frequent White Power forums??

Neither do I, but I imagine those might be your best bet to see some real enthusiasm. Though, I also wonder if he has cooled that down enough that they might be losing faith in him to be the one to take them mainstream.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

What, Trump, a white supremacist mascot? Come ooon... That's unpossible. He's such a nice and reasonable guy!

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Well, if Trump polls at about half of the GOP vote, and the GOP is roughly half of the voters, and the turnout is about half of the eligible voters, that means at least 1/8 of all US voters favor Trump. And that's quite some number.

One would expect at least 1 in 8 people anywhere (including LJ) to be a Trump fanboy/girl - although why anyone'd pick this guy truly beats me.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

The next president could be elected with just 1/8 of the vote? Says a lot about democracy.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

IKR.

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Some have argued that a compulsory vote would mitigate this problem, but I still don't see how it'd prevent the majority of people from voting for "None of the above", or even more LOLs-worthy, for the "You're all idiots, nyah-nyah-nyah" option, and still symbolically flipping the bird to Teh Establishmunt.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

I could think of a few names off the top of my head, but they do not frequent this place any more. In fact I do not think they are that active on LJ any more.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Even if there were, they wouldn't admit it. But they'd still cast their ballot.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Why, is there something wrong with being a Trump supporter?



>:-D

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

I don't personally know anyone who would support him, although I am pretty sure I could find more than a few of them at my local coffee shop or the local bar.

From my observation, Trump supporters are usually angry at the GOP "establishment," angry about how the last 8-20 years have gone both economically and politically, and want to "send a message" that they are not going to be condescended to by politicians, the media, and other "elites" who "think they know better than them." They are "sick and tired of playing nice." For most, it isn't a positive agenda as much as it is a thumb in the eye for "them" however you might what to define "them."

Which is sad, because Trump doesn't even offer an the answer to their problem, just more of the same with different window dressing.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Could the argument be made, then, that "The They" have brought this upon themselves, what with demonstrating a total disconnect with "the commonfolk"?

[garote]

That's an interesting and scary question.

Perhaps that's likely in any social environment when one group is seen as having a monopoly on the truth. It makes it hard to ague both sides of an issue when one side must always be assigned to the "wrong" group by default of not being held by the majority in the "right" group.

Take, for example, the corporate tax rate for foreign profits. My Democratic social group complains loud and often about how corporations are not paying "their fair share" of taxes, and finding ways to keep their profits from being repatriated. It's given as proof of how large corporations are evil, and a plague to democracy and the middle class, and the reason all our taxes are so high, and the rich are so rich, et cetera. But no one is asking a fundamental question that underpins this complaint:

Why are we taxing the repatriation of foreign-earned profits at all? Because we can? Because the government "deserves" that money? Because we do? Because they would just "waste" it by spending it on local wages or infrastructure?

If we wanted to grow the economy, and make American labor competitive relative to Mexican and Chinese labor, shouldn't we make it as rock-bottom cheap as possible to bring in foreign profits? Shouldn't we be taxing investments going out instead? Or did we lose that argument when the largest corporations made a case that it would "cripple" them relative to their worldwide competition, and they never made this case because frankly, it's easier to just keep the money out of the US?

Now, that's a question that I think is worth examining, because that taxation may be a factor in the hollowing-out of the blue-collar workforce in this country, and a lot of people on the right are angry about that. Meanwhile people on the left mock them for "voting against their interests". But how well are they (we) serving their interests after all?

I'm not claiming that I have a bulletproof case for lowering the repatriation tax rate to zero. I'm sure I don't. But my point is, the question is not even part of the conversation - not even part of the landscape - for people on the left. The government demands the money, and so, the companies are criminal for not handing it eagerly over. End of story.

The landscape on the left has quite a few of these blank, unexplored areas. And when people come boiling across them, angry or disenfranchised, we comfort ourselves by calling them savages from a primitive land; not worth listening to.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

You speak reason, my friend. Unfortunately, most people are so deeply entrenched in their respective partisan lines that I'm not seeing these blank spaces becoming part of the general discourse any time soon.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Worth a read: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433921/white-elites-versus-white-working-class

Trump is a true departure from what the consensus of the GOP has been since Goldwater and Reagan. And he is also a true departure from what it means to be conservative in the US context. That is why the antibody response by people like the editors of National Review has been so fierce. He has much more in common with European statists, nationalists and populists than he does the sort of Russel Kirk brand of conservationism. He is not a conservative, he is a caricature of what a liberal imagines a conservative looks like. Just like he has spent his life portraying himself as what a poor person imagines a rich person is like.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

All these people are in for quite some disappointment on day one of a hypothetical Trump presidency.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Trump aide: "Congratulations, Mr President! So, Mr President, now what?"...
Trump: "What. Business as usual, that's what. Um, you know I didn't really mean all those things, right?"

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

a hypothetical Trump presidency

Not gonna happen.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

That depends. They are living on fantasy, if Trump can produce some gestures to immanentize their eschaton, they may take it as reality.

So, on day one, I doubt they will be any more disappointed than your average Obama voter. On day 793? That could a different story. Maybe.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

They'll have learned to cope with him by day 793. People have a tendency to put up with stuff like that.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

I'm not pro-Trump - but I don't consider myself nearly as anti-Trump as most. Back when there were 25 candidates (total) or so running - I said he wasn't my first or last choice. Now that we're down to 5 total - I still don't think he's my first or last choice.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

And who are your first and last choice?

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Cruz and Hillary are my bottom two (In no particular order - because I'd never vote for either) I could figure up some political reasons for you - but when it gets down to it - I think they're shitty people. I'd feel less shame not voting, voting for some batshit crazy 3rd party, or even Trump.

I like 75% of Bernie. He seems like a genuinely good person - and he's reasonable, until he starts talking about economics.

Kasich - he's stubborn, and pulling for chaos at the convention (I'm stubborn too, and also like the idea of chaos at the convention - but those aren't qualities - they're flaws). Still, not a bad option.

So - top 2 and bottom 2 are interchangeable. Trump in the middle. Maybe he could say something brilliant or stupid that pushes him to 2 or 4.

Half of me enjoys this excitement - the other half of me wouldn't mind a boring Biden vs Ryan in the main event.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

I have a number of friends with a libertarian bent and they will support any Republican nominee to limit the chances of a socialist or a democrat even just in name only. With that said not a one of them would say they are tRump supporters. I think they are too educated to fall into that trap. Even the Tea Partiers among them don't like Kruz much... the pickin's are slim for thoughtful conservatives these days.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

he's reasonable, until he starts talking about economics.

All he talks about is economics.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

It's all connected, so maybe I should lower the 75% a bit - but campaign reform and being a little bit more picky about what wars we jump in gets the heads nodding - and when the stuff that doesn't add up comes out - the heads just keep nodding.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen, it is almost exactly the opposite. What drives his supporters is his commitment to the stuff that doesn't add up. The anti-war and campaign finance is sort of pro forma assumptions.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

I'd guess that Trump fans would be pretty scarce on LJ. Conservatives, at least using the US definition, aren't all that common and the ones who are around are typically the elitist snob type of conservative rather than the pitchfork and torch bearing type. Also, LJ is pretty hard on racists and you at least need to tolerate some racism to be a Trump fan.

Of course, I can't say I know anyone who supports Mr. Trump, so I'm just going by the media. While they usually get the facts more or less close, they're really incomplete when trying to tell a complicated narrative like what kind of people would support Mr. Trump.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Re: LJ being hard on racists. You haven't seen what the Russian half of LJ looks like.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right... which makes me feel ignorantly blissful.

[garote]

Where I live (San Francisco area), there are a surprising number of Republicans, including Trump supporters, threaded into the local population. But they do not at all feel comfortable expressing their opinions in public. Whereas with Democrats, independents, and left-leaning libertarians ... Well, for the last 15+ years, if you stood in a crowded bar and called George Bush a mentally deficient "trained monkey", you would get a round of applause. This despite roughly half the US population voting for him.

In Southern California, though, and farther north of San Francisco (Sacramento, etc) it's a different story. You better make sure you're standing in the right crowd before you say something like that, or you're going to get people yelling back at you and possibly start a fight!

My sister lives in Simi Valley, and is active in both a local church group, and a very science-forward education organization for kids that does stuff like field trips to JPL and mock paleontology digs. She's connected to a whole lot of people on Facebook through these, and she sees, as she calls it, "a whole spectrum of stuff, from Trump and Cruz supporters to hardcore Bernie fans, from strict Christians and Mormons to hippies and atheists." She says she cannot post anything political on her Facebook feed without risking an argument, so she limits it to birthday wishes and pictures of her kids.

So, I'd say, if you want to get a look at a bunch of Trump supporters fast, just start randomly "friend"ing people on Facebook. March steadily away from your current contacts, and probably 4 or 5 degrees of separation or less, you'll see pro-Trump memes.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

I love how diverse your state is.

[garote]

It's diverse... But there's also a lot more balkanization than people think, or are willing to admit. So there's a lot of tension. (Even my sister would probably not interact with 2/3 of the people she does, except that they help each other out with parenting.)

There's also another conflict going on here that's sometimes disorienting. A large chunk of social life in California is blue-collar people interacting on a small scale as part of their work, with many other people. They navigate this cultural and racial diversity as part of their lives, and sometimes they have to do business with people who are ignorant, or insensitive, or loudly racist or sexist, or really religiously conservative, et cetera. They need a thick skin, and a strong sense of humor and independence.

But sometimes they use really inappropriate-sounding language as they go. So, there's a conflict between the way blue-collar people do things, and the way more cosmopolitan white-collar people want them to do things.

An example: In a white-collar job, if you call your friend a racist slur in the break room and he calls you one back, and someone overhears you, they can complain to HR and you will both be given sensitivity training.

In a blue-collar job, if you trade racist slurs with your friend, your co-workers will ignore it, or roll their eyes, or probably laugh. They instinctively understand that you are re-appropriating racist slurs to demonstrate your trust and friendship, even if they wouldn't explain it that way.

The white-collar people really wish the blue-collar people would stop talking like this. It makes them very uncomfortable. It also makes them think that all the blue-collar people must be racist, which can act as a distraction from their own unexamined racist behavior.