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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Many White Men Love Trump's Coronavirus Response
More than 80 percent of Republicans think the president is doing a great job with the pandemic. Heres why.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/10/white-men-coronavirus-trump-approval/616780/
Kurtis, a young accountant in McKinney, Texas, likes the thing that many people hate about Donald Trump: that the president has left the pandemic response almost entirely up to local officials. He left it up to each state to make their own decision on how they wanted to proceed, Kurtis told me recently. Most experts think the absence of a national strategy for tackling the coronavirus has been a disaster. But Kurtis argues that North Dakota, for example, shouldnt have to follow the same rules as New York City. Kurtis voted for Trump in 2016, and he plans to do so again this year. Some 82 percent of Republicans approve of Trumps coronavirus responsea higher percentage than before the president was diagnosed with the virus. This is despite the fact that more than 220,000 Americans have died, and virtually every public-health expert, including those who have worked for Republican administrations, says the president has performed abysmally. Experts offer a few different explanations for the spell that Trump has cast over his supporters. The simplest is that Trump voters like Trump, and as is often the case with people we like, he can do no wrong in their eyes. We might just as easily ask why Trump opponents think he is doing a horrible job with the pandemic, says Richard Harris, a political scientist at Rutgers University.
In academic terms, this is called my-side biasobjective reality looks different through the lens of your home team. (Sometimes literally: A famous 1954 psychology study found that undergraduates at Dartmouth and Princeton Universities had completely different perceptions of a football game played between the rival schools.) In fact, this tendency to approve of ones own side might become self-reinforcing. If someone doesnt support Trump and all that he does, they might stop considering themselves a Republican, and thus stop showing up as one in surveys, says Robb Willer, a sociologist at Stanford University. Other wrinkles of our current political moment could further explain why so many Trump supporters approve of the presidents pandemic response. Katherine Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says the most consistent theme on the right-wing talk-radio shows shes been listening to is a desire to trust people to make their own decisions, rather than trusting the government to make decisions for people. Shana Kushner Gadarian, a political scientist at Syracuse University, pointed out that understanding the failures of Trumps pandemic response might require intimate knowledge of other countries public-health systemsa tall order for the average person.
But another prominent scholar of the American right believes Trump support among men, in particular, is rooted in something more psychological. Many white men feel that their gender and race have been vilified, says the sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild. Their economic prospects are bad, and American culture tells them that their gender is too. So theyve turned to Trump as a type of folk hero, one who can restore their sense of former glory. Exposing themselves and others to the coronavirus is part of that heroism. Or as Kurtis told me when I asked him how he felt about Trump getting the coronavirus, Trumps willing to accept that risk to win for the American people. And Joe Biden is sitting in his basement. This hero theory of Trump is a continuation of Hochschilds earlier work. A professor at UC Berkeley, Hochschild soared to the best-seller lists with her 2016 book Strangers in Their Own Land, which came out before the election but proved timely in its focus on the minds of Trump voters. For the book, Hochschild interviews an array of characters across Louisiana in an attempt to unearth what she calls their deep story: the emotional, feels-as-if truth of their lives.
Hochschild describes her subjects deep story in a metaphor of a long line of Americans standing on a hill, waiting to get over the top, to the American dream. But as they stand there, tired and eager, they see that certain people are cutting the line in front of them. Women, African Americans, and immigrants are getting ahead, boosted by the government and its affirmative-action programs. As Hochschild writes, they feel your money is running through a liberal sympathy sieve you dont control or agree with. Many white men, in particular, feel shoved back in line, she writes. Unable to draw confidence from their wealth, which is in many cases nonexistent, or their jobs, which are steadily being moved offshore, they turn to their pride in being American. Anyone who criticizes Americawell, theyre criticizing you, she writes. Trump, meanwhile, has allowed his male supporters to feel like a good moral American and to feel superior to those they considered other or beneath them, she writes. Trump might not always represent his supporters economic self-interest, but he feeds their emotional self-interest. Trump is, in essence, the identity politics candidate for white men.
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LizBeth
(9,952 posts)And thru misinformation make it hard on the nation to do the right thing. He killed.
tanyev
(42,554 posts)and behaved maliciously when he himself was infectious.
Its a fair point that perhaps North Dakota didnt need to get locked down at the same time as New York City, but that is something a competent panel of experts could have been working on as soon as the news started filtering in from China, instead of a team of Trump toadies focusing on the stock market and his re-election.
Nexus2
(1,261 posts)Doodley
(9,088 posts)them by acting like idiots.
BigmanPigman
(51,590 posts)"When political leaders suggest basic precautions appear unmanly, men are less likely to follow health and safety advice, experts say"
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/10/us/politics/trump-biden-masks-masculinity.html
NRaleighLiberal
(60,014 posts)Many I've met through life - in my career, our neighborhoods - I find them ridiculous, insecure, trying so hard to be "male" - do "men things".
fantase56
(444 posts)got tired of the "hold my beer" crowd in my late 20's. I'm 64 and haven't had many guy friends in years.
yonder
(9,664 posts)I stole it from a movie many years ago. I think it was "The Four Seasons".
I just don't get it. I suppose it's related to some sort of base animal behavior related to attracting a mate.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,014 posts)The wife was so incredibly insecure, yet obnoxious and an incredible bible-cherry picking hypocrite - she liked to start arguments with me (I'd typically end up walking away).
But the husband - always wanted to go off and do guy stuff with me - wanted me to read a book about "men regaining their dominance and appropriate role".
Needless to say, my wife and I avoided them at all costs - when they moved away, there was much joy.
But really, all the men in our neighborhood seemed to be like that. Weird.
OR...
I am the weird one!
yonder
(9,664 posts)Silent3
(15,210 posts)Of course, part of it is that I've always been introverted, so I'm fine with a small group of friends. I don't need, or want, a "crew".
I don't give a damn about sports either, and that's a big thing it seems so many men bond over. Bores the hell out of me.
JustFiveMoreMinutes
(2,133 posts)Doodley
(9,088 posts)stupid about it. And if these people can't tell the difference between being a hero and being an idiot who thinks he knows better than the science, then God help us. And looking at the quote below, what exactly has Trump "won" for the American people? Again, if they don't understand that the economy would be much better, as it is in China, if everyone just put on their masks, then they are idiots, not heroes.
"Trump as a type of folk hero, one who can restore their sense of former glory. Exposing themselves and others to the coronavirus is part of that heroism. Or as Kurtis told me when I asked him how he felt about Trump getting the coronavirus, Trumps willing to accept that risk to win for the American people."
Midnight Writer
(21,760 posts)Huh?
It's not because we don't like him.
It is because there is empirical evidence the USA is doing worse than other countries, that there is no plan other than "like a miracle, it will just go away".
Kath2
(3,074 posts)This article is so to the point. They do feel so violated and so hurt. But their refusal to ever deal with systemic sexism and racism is a major issue.
As long as they are in denial, they will not change. And they will continue to support candidates like trump. Like my ex does.
BusyBeingBest
(8,052 posts)their own decisions instead of government-- Um, no, that's not how it works with your uncovered virus-spewing face holes, you fucking morons. You're making your own decision all right: the decision to infect everyone else indoors with you. They will never understand or care that it's mostly about reducing virus particles in the environment. They think it's about them, and their personal comfort and preferences. Stupid selfish motherfuckers.
Initech
(100,069 posts)Of course I do happen to be related to an ER doctor and public health official who has personally intubated COVID patients, so maybe I am a bit biased.
Turbineguy
(37,324 posts)he would be qualified to run for president. As a republican.
Charlie Manson being dead and all.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)It is on the daily list of states (there are 9 of them, and New York is not on it)) where cases are highest per capita. Its graph looks like the ascent to Mount Everest. Its a bright red hot spot on the map.
Active cases of COVID-19 soared in North Dakota to a new high on Thursday after three straight days of declines, and coronavirus-related hospitalizations and newly confirmed cases also set records. ...
The state on Thursday reported 1,222 new COVID-19 cases statewide, including 169 in Burleigh and 60 in Morton. The previous high for daily cases was 1,038 on Oct. 22. The state's pandemic case total is at 41,130, with 6,771 active cases, up 524 from Wednesday. The previous high for active cases came Sunday, at 6,506.
https://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/health/north-dakota-covid-19-data-sets-3-records-burgum-warns-of-challenging-times-ahead/article_14d9a70c-37fa-57d0-8cd8-0c8679387eeb.html
Silent3
(15,210 posts)I've read many of these articles trying to analyze what makes Trump supporters tick.
Perhaps these articles have helped me understand, in an academic way, a bit more about why many people support Trump. I haven't found anything yet, however, that generates more "understanding," not in the sense of sympathizing with or identifying with the mindset.
In fact, the more of this kind of stuff I read, the more I find my suspicions confirmed that these are people are, in fact, "deplorable".
We've got to get this country back together somehow, so it's not always under such great polarizing tension. I haven't a clue how to do that, and I'm not personally up to being part of the healing process myself. That'll take someone a lot kinder and more forgiving than I can mange right now, or might ever be able to manage.