Understanding the Trump Voter

Or, why you shouldn’t be an asshole to working class voters on Twitter

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was 95% rhetorical and 5% policy. He blustered his way to the White House on a catchy slogan, and has apparently been making it up as he goes from there.

Most Trump voters were willing to forgo the details of the policy in exchange for the rhetoric, putting blind faith in Trump’s hollow promises. For instance, Trump promised to bring back coal jobs to rural, working-class voters — jobs that no longer exist. But on the basis of these empty promises, the Rust Belt broke for Trump, most notably Pennsylvania.

The Rust Belt was just a microcosm of the demographics that helped Trump win. Looking at exit polls, Trump voters were usually one or more of the following: White, no college degree, working to middle class, Christian, and rural.

And unsurprisingly, like any good business person, Trump has attempted to screw over his “customers” for his gain and for the gain of his elite allies by taking away their healthcare, giving larger tax breaks to the rich instead of the middle class, forcing American consumers to pay for his wall instead of Mexico, and by repealing privacy protections for internet users.

As a result, some Trump voters stopped paying attention to the rhetoric and started paying attention to the results, and they weren’t pleased with the results. There’s no shortage of people who have said that they regretted voting for Trump — there is a Twitter, a Facebook, and subreddit dedicated to collecting social media posts of people admitting they regret their vote.

The response to these public regrets has been, well — less than sympathetic.

The founder of Daily Kos, Markos “kos” Moulitsas, echoed these sentiments in an editorial titled, “Be happy for coal miners losing their health insurance. They’re getting exactly what they voted for” and calls out coal country for helping to put Trump in office.

And sure — it might be tough to find sympathy for the people who helped put possibly the most incompetent, corrupt president since Warren G. Harding in office. But there’s a few reasons why such an attitude is harmful, especially for Democrats and leftists who hope to get Trump out of office in 2020 (or earlier).

Promoting Unity Against Trump

Anti-Trump support is even higher than it was before the election (when it was a plurality already). Indeed, Trump’s popularity is at a historical low, and those numbers are poised to continue.

But by marginalizing regretful Trump voters by insulting them and denigrating them won’t actually help defeat Trump. Establishing this boundary between moderates and the left divides support against Trump, which makes it easier for him to obtain a plurality of votes — even if he fails to gain a majority.

Scorning Trump-Regretters will do little except to scare them away from the left. Assuming that the Democrats can learn to embrace the Progressive movement and leave behind the Clinton-Era-Corporate-Democracy, the left will serve blue-collar workers far better than Trump ever will — but they won’t listen if scorned. Unity is the key to defeating Trump in 2020, and the more unity, the better.