Why Trump?

“I think there are a lot of secret Trump fans”

McClean's published an interesting article entitled, "How Donald Trump Happened." It's a good piece and I recommend you go read it, but Yahoo, to their credit, published an in-depth look at why people are voting Trump, and it ain't just angry klansmen...

Who's Really Voting for Trump? Portraits behind the Polls:

Despite conducting their lives in a conservative manner, the average Trump voter is not a social conservative and not anti-government. They are by and large economic populists who oppose foreign military adventures. They also also "scored higher on measures of anti-Hispanic and anti-black prejudice..." *

*- Go read the linked Rand study. It's an America-first, anti-crime sentiment, not the nazi armband white hood variety, and the article provides no support whatsoever for its unfounded assertion of "anti-black prejudice."

Yahoo sifted through polling data and studies, tracked down real Trump supporters, and profiled six of them who are representative of their larger cohort.

Security Mom:

“This nation is like a home,” she said. “In my home, I have locks on my doors. I have blinds on my windows. I let people into my home who I want to be let in my home. The illegal immigrants need to stop. … We need to stop letting these people in who are not welcomed, who are intruders, who are violating us, who (are) violating our children.”

Independent Voter:

“Economically we’ve fallen apart the last 20 years. I mean, here I am. I’m a calculus class away from a BS in business. I have BA in history. Minor in speech communications. I have a CEBS degree. And I’m driving a taxi for minimum wage.”

“Boy, does he say some stupid stuff,” Vance admitted. “But Trump’s not as nutty as everybody thinks he is. He’s just playing the game. The guy has good common horse sense. Those buildings didn’t go up in New York City by themselves. I can’t even imagine what Trump had to deal with — how many documents, negotiations, politicians, protesters, contracts.”

Latina Lawyer:

“If you’re an intelligent person, you would be supporting Trump because it would mean you've actually researched the difference between fair trade and free trade...”

Delgado is offended by the assumption that expanding immigration is the main concern of America’s Latinos. She says the community has “all the same concerns, and needs, and wants, and worries as Anglo Americans.”

“There’s a myth that … they do work that Americans won’t do. ... No, they do work for a price that Americans won’t do it at,” Delgado said. “They’re willing to do work at third world rates, so you’re obviously going to displace an entire demographic.”

“He sounds like a mechanic sometimes. I absolutely love that, that he has that ability to communicate with Americans on their level,” said Delgado.

Working Man:

Friends he knows in his community stay unmarried to keep receiving government-funded health care benefits for their children. One friend of Neal’s has so abused his body with drugs and alcohol that he now is unable to work and is on disability, collecting benefits that he spends on his addictions.

Now he drives through a subsidized housing neighborhood near his house, and sees BMWs parked on the street. “To see somebody that’s living in fixed-income housing but yet can buy 25-inch rims and drive nicer cars than me — by all means, I’m not jealous of it, what other people have doesn’t define me — but it’s just another one of those things that’s like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

“The guy is a genius when it comes to building companies. He’s like a mad scientist,” Neal said. “I really do think he knows how to change things to make our economy a lot stronger than what it is.”

“And I think once our economy gets stronger, a lot of things will get better,” he said. “We all know how it is when money gets tight. Everybody gets bitter.”

The Apprentice

What he learned from Trump’s books, and from the Trump University classes he took was that “if you have the desire and there’s nobody out there saying no to you, it’s amazing what you can do.”

Cruz is not an angry Trump voter. ...Cruz is voting for the sober dealmaker, not the ranting bully, the optimist who will make America great again, not the xenophobe who thinks the country has to be rescued from the brink of collapse. 

Cruz thinks the candidate’s inflammatory remarks about Mexican immigrants “probably could've been said a little differently.” But while “the hateful people in the world are going to think of [Trump’s rhetoric] as hate … the silent majority, or the majority that’s out here, realize that what he’s saying isn't hate, it’s that we’re all in this together. We’re Americans, and we want to be Americans, and we want a united country.”

Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected

There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully.

The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful—those who have power or access to it. [...] they are protected from the world they have created. [...]

If you are an unprotected American—one with limited resources and negligible access to power—you have absorbed some lessons from the past 20 years... -- Peggy Noonan

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"The events of history have aligned to give the people this fleeting chance to bust up the oligarchy – to take back control from the 'Masters of the Universe' return it to the good and decent and patriotic citizens of the United States." -- Senator Jeff Sessions

Sic Semper Tyrannis Elitist

In both Middle America and Middle England, among both rednecks and chavs, voters who have had more than they can stomach of being patronised, nudged, nagged and basically treated as diseased bodies to be corrected rather than lively minds to be engaged are now putting their hope into a different kind of politics.

And the entitled Third Way brigade, schooled to rule, believing themselves possessed of a technocratic expertise that trumps the little people’s vulgar political convictions, are not happy. Not one bit. (Brendan O'Neill - Spectator)

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Well, that’s certainly true. Both America and Britain have developed a ruling class that is increasingly insular and removed from — and contemptuous of — the people it deigns to rule. The ruled are now returning the contempt. (Glenn Harlan Reynolds)

The global elites who rule us, hate us. Yes, libs and progs, they hate you too. They're just using you. We can't bring the hurt to the elites they so richly deserve, but El Donaldo can. That's why the elites are soiling their dainty panties over his rise...

Keep calm, and Donald on...