The mainstream media loves to come up with an explanation for everything. Even things that are difficult to explain seem to always have a simple boiler-plate solution. They tie up current events in a nice little bow by providing overly-simplistic reasons for what happens here at home and out in the world.
Sometimes those reasons are not based on actual facts but on easy-to-digest narratives that keep people clicking and satisfy people’s curiosity. One of these easy-to-digest narratives happens to involve Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and the explanations for why his supporters are going to vote for him in the November election.
Liberals and Conservatives love to throw around the notion that Trump voters support him because of his anti-immigration and anti-trade positions.
Liberals love to use this response because it suggests that Trump supporters are not racially prejudiced but are disappointed with the effects of modern capitalism. This leads liberals to believe that these voters can be won over with a progressive economic agenda that addresses their issues head on.
But there is plenty of data that contradicts this economic explanation for Trump’s success during the election season. Survey analysis clearly shows that racial prejudices are more in alignment with Trump supporters than a person’s income or disappointment with the American economy.
Gallup’s Jonathan Rothwell published his findings with the Washington Post where he discovered, through the analysis of survey research, that Trump’s supporters are concerned with a lot more than just economic problems and anxiety.
He finds that people voting for Trump in the general election are more likely to be whites struggling with health issues, whites suffering from intergenerational economic mobility, and whites who live in high areas of racial segregation.
Here are some in-depth highlights of his survey research.
Support For Trump Is Correlated With Higher Income, Not Lower
On one hand this is to be expected. The Democratic Party has always polled higher with people of lower economic means. What it does say is that Trump’s attempt to brand himself as the candidate for people left behind by the economy has largely fallen flat.
Rothwell also discovered that Trump enthusiasts have no higher rate of being unemployed or of leaving the workforce due to economic difficulty. He concluded by saying:
“The individual data do not suggest that those who view Trump favorably are confronting abnormally high economic distress, by conventional measures of employment and income.”
Despite The Results Mentioned Above, Trump Supporters Are Usually Blue-Collar Workers Who Are Less Educated
On first glance, this assertion gleaned from the survey data appears to contradict Rothwell’s assertion that support for Trump is correlated with higher income.
However he finds that Trump’s supporters tend to be blue-collar workers who are high-earners and are thriving in the current economic landscape.
These Blue-Collar Donald Trump Voters Typically Live In Areas Of High Racial Segregation
Rothwell discovered that Trump voters are more likely to live in homogenous areas that have a majority of whites. He wrote in his piece:
“People living in zip codes with disproportionately high shares of white residents are significantly and robustly more likely to view Trump favorably.”
He is basically saying that if you live in white suburbs, you have a higher likelihood of supporting Donald Trump.
Trump Does Not Do Well In Areas That Are Affected By Immigration Or Trade
Living in areas with high immigrant populations does not correlate to a higher number of votes for Trump. Areas that were farther from Mexico and contained less immigration correlated in higher approval ratings for Donald Trump’s Campaign.
The survey statistics on trade are also very intriguing. Increases in manufacturing employment from 2000-2007 were met with higher support for Trump’s candidacy. This is interesting considering he likes to claim that areas with low manufacturing are in high support of him.
He says this because he wants people to think that he will be the one to bring these jobs back and increase prosperity for those in rural areas.
Despite Their Economic Success, Trump Voters Are Struggling On Two Fronts
One of Rothwell’s findings indicates that areas struggling with intergenerational mobility have slight upticks in Trump support, versus other areas who don’t experience this problem. Many parents struggle with the idea that their children may not experience the same advantages that they had when becoming an adult. This fear leads them to grab on to a candidate who is telling them what they want to hear and promising radical change.
The second front deals with mortality rates among the white middle class. Areas with higher mortality rates among white people have a better likelihood of supporting Donald Trump and his candidacy. Quality of life is apparently a big issue for people looking to support the Trump Campaign.
Rothwell concludes his survey analysis by saying:
“I find only limited support that the political views of US nationalists—as manifest in a favorable view towards Donald Trump—are related to economic self-interest. If so, the self-interest calculation must go beyond conventional economic measures to include one’s physical health and inter-generational concerns.”
Here is a speech that Donald Trump gave about the economy in Monessen, Pennsylvania. Listen to his words and think about the statistics given to you in this article. It should drastically change your opinion on what he has to offer this country in turns of economic prosperity.
