New study shows Trump has potential to unite whites' "ethnic and economic anxieties into a powerful
populist coalition".
A newly released poll shows the populist power of Donald Trump
For example, Lee Drutman noted that ethnically conservative and economically progressive populists who want increased spending on Social Security and a decrease in immigration vastly outnumber political conservatives and business Republicans. (?) “So when Trump speaks out both against immigration and against fellow Republicans who want to cut Social Security,” Drutman wrote, “he’s speaking out for a lot of people.”
The PEPS follows prior research and measures resentment toward African Americans and immigrants with statements like “blacks could be just as well off as whites if they only tried harder” and “it bothers me when I come in contact with immigrants who speak little or no English.” It also contains a measure of ethnocentrism developed by Donald Kinder and Cindy Kam, which compares how favorably respondents rated whites to how favorably they rated minority groups.
Finally, the PEPS included questions about taxes, the minimum wage, government health care, big business and labor unions — which together form a reliable measure of economic liberalism.
https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=
&w=1484
On economic issues, Trump separates himself even more from his closest competitor in the PEPS survey, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). The graph below shows that Cruz outperforms Trump by about 15 percentage points among the most economically conservative Republicans. But Cruz loses to Trump by over 30 points among the quarter of Republicans who hold progressive positions on health care, taxes, the minimum wage and unions.
It appears from the PEPS data, then, that the Trump coalition unites resentment of minority groups with support for economically progressive policies.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/01/27/a-newly-released-poll-shows-the-populist-power-of-donald-trump/
We all know that the republican party is full of people with a "resentment of minority groups". Where did these poll takers find the "quarter of Republicans who hold progressive positions on health care, taxes, the minimum wage and unions."
The point is made in the article that Trump is not really that 'progressive' in economic terms since he "opposes raising the minimum wage and has proposed a massive tax cut on high incomes" and supports spreading 'right-to-work' to more states. Of course, within the GOP being 'economically progressive' by comparison is a low bar to hurdle.
= new reply since forum marked as read
"ethnically conservative and economically progressive populists who want increased spending on Social Security and a decrease in immigration vastly outnumber political conservatives and business Republicans." *
"Economically progressive" is a big problem for that giant vacuum in the sky. For a while the 0.01% had all the bigots helping them keep the engine fueled.
Bernie is attracting progressive/populist conservatives also. If Trump stays in the race, I imagine we'll be seeing him go after Bernie's. If Bernie doesn't win the primary, how many will stay with the Democrats for economic reasons and how many will move right?
* Conservatives tend to fall in 3 general political groups, those who care most about differences among people and their behaviors (social and very many religious conservatives), those who are mostly just averse to change ("traditional," or "classic"
, and those mostly oriented to economic issues.
Over the past 40 years, the Kochs et ilk used mass media manipulations to mostly wipe out "traditional" conservatism as a political force that might oppose them.
