How long before the white working class realizes Trump was just scamming them?

[DonViejo]

By Paul Waldman November 23 at 1:34 PM

-snip-

Imagine you’re one of those folks who went to Trump rallies and thrilled to his promises to take America back from the establishment, who felt your heart stir as he promised to torture prisoners, who got your “Trump That Bitch” T-shirt, who was overjoyed to finally have a candidate who tells it like it is. What are you thinking as you watch this?

If you have any sense, you’re coming to the realization that it was all a scam. You got played. While you were chanting “Lock her up!” he was laughing at you for being so gullible. While you were dreaming about how you’d have an advocate in the Oval Office, he was dreaming about how he could use it to make himself richer. He hasn’t even taken office yet and everything he told you is already being revealed as a lie.

During the campaign, Trump made two kinds of promises to those white working class voters. One was very practical, focused on economics. In coal country, he said he’d bring back all the coal jobs that have been lost to cheap natural gas (even as he promotes more fracking of natural gas; figure that one out). In the industrial Midwest, he said he’d bring back all the labor-intensive factory jobs that were mostly lost to automation, not trade deals. These promises were utterly ludicrous, but most of the target voters seemed not to care.

The second kind of promise was emotional and expressive. It was about turning back the clock to a time when immigrants hadn’t come to your town, when women weren’t so uppity, when you could say whatever you wanted and you didn’t feel like the culture and the economy were leaving you behind. So Trump said he’d toss Hillary Clinton in jail, force everyone to say “Merry Christmas” again, and sue those dastardly liberal news organizations into submission. And of course, there were promises — like building a wall on the southern border and making Mexico pay for it just so they know who’s boss — that claimed to serve a practical purpose but also had an important expressive purpose. And now one by one Trump is casting them all off.

So what are we left with? What remains is Trump’s erratic whims, his boundless greed, and the core of Republican policies Congress will pursue, which are most definitely not geared toward the interests of working class whites. He can gut environmental regulations, but that doesn’t mean millions of people are going to head back to the coal mines — it was market forces more than anything else that led to coal’s decline. He can renegotiate trade deals, but that doesn’t mean that the labor-intensive factory jobs are coming back. And by the way, the high wages, good benefits, and job security those jobs used to offer? That was thanks to labor unions, which Republicans are now going to try to destroy once and for all.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/11/23/how-long-before-the-white-working-class-realizes-trump-was-just-scamming-them/?utm_term=.61cbb378e368&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1

[SoCalMusicLover]

1. NEVER!

They're mostly too ignorant, self absorbed, or just plain Stupid.

[Initech]

14. Yup! Heads up their asses!

Lack of education + too much distorted news (Fox / Infowars / Brietbart, etc) + religion = Death of critical thinking.

[bdamomma]

26. all of the above

which you listed is on the money. Dumbing down the masses that is what they did.

[Initech]

34. I had a good comeback for a comment on Youtube:

OP: I'm just here to read the triggered republitards lash out. Good times.

Response: Well (name removed) you don't see so called republitards destroying property, beating up people, challenging the cops etc etc because their candidate lost.....Give me a break.

Me: @ Response: No, you just see them tagging swastika graffiti on children's playground equipment and holding white power rallies at Italian restaurants and sending death threats to theater producers. Much classier.

That's the kind of bullshit we are going to put up with for the next four years.

[RKP5637]

35. Exactly!!! It's hopeless!!! n/t

[lapucelle]

2. As soon as gas goes back to 4 dollars a gallon

the light will begin to dawn.

[pangaia]

3. No it won't.

If gas goes up, it will be gradually and they won't even notice,.. The old dropping a frog in cool water and turning on the burner.

[lapucelle]

5. You're probably right, at least when it comes to his true believers.

It will be interesting to see how Republicans try to blame the coming messes on Democrats.

[jberryhill]

53. Putin needs it up soon

The Russian economy doesn't work with oil this low.

It's going up. Soon and fast. They'll find a scapegoat for it.

[joshcryer]

74. As long as the Saudi's pump out oil...

...I don't see what mechanism they can use to keep it up.

[Island Blue]

60. I doubt that will do it.

What was it when Bush was in office? I've don't remember exactly, but I seem to remember it being pretty close to $4 a gallon and yet, dufuses around here continue to vote Republican time after time.

[jambo101]

4. DUPED

Amazes me how so many Americans can be conned by such an obvious ego maniac.

[gratuitous]

6. I'll be reminding them

I've made Facebook posts for anyone who voted for Trump, reminding them of Trump's promises and how he went about keeping them. While I don't think I have too many Trump supporters in my friends list, those posts are being liked and shared pretty profusely compared to most of my posts. I figure make a post once a week or so about Trump's latest broken promise should keep his supporters good and dissatisfied with their vote and maybe even themselves.

So far, I made a post about Trump's vow to open up federal lands to oil drilling and fracking. You want to see oil derricks in Grand Teton or Glacier National Parks? Seems like an odd thing to vote for, but if you voted for Trump, that's what you're going to get, according to Trump's own .gov web site. Another post was about Paul Ryan's announced plan to dismantle Medicare and the Affordable Care Act, reversing gains made in lowering the percentage of uninsured people, and turning around the trend toward lower health care costs.

Other posts dealt with Trump's announcement that his campaign pledge to reduce budget deficits is being abandoned (feel like a chump yet, Trump voters?) and the abandonment of his pledge to "Lock her up" and not bring Hillary Clinton to justice for whatever crime they might imagine she committed. Don't be surprised, Trump voters, if you look in the mirror some morning and see a big old Blow Pop looking back at you. Suckers.

[TDBroke]

12. Healthcare costs

have actually gone up for me. I'm still actually a bit bitter about that one. And it didn't go up an insignificant amount either. It went up about 86%.

[gratuitous]

20. And without PPACA?

I wonder if your healthcare costs might not have gone up as well. For another couple of months, at least you can't be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition, denied insurance, or be subject to a lifetime cap on benefits.

Instead of doing anything to help people caught in the margins of the system, Republicans have instead continued to chip away at benefits and coverage, denying whole states expanded Medicare coverage, and looked to jury-rig the exchanges into uselessness.

Every piece of major legislation - the PPACA was that for sure - has to be tweaked and adjusted as it takes effect. Republicans have blocked every solution, worsened every shortcoming, and left some Americans worse off than before, all in an effort to convince people that universal health care isn't possible like it is in practically every other industrialized country on the planet.

You're entitled to be bitter; I encourage you to be bitter at the people who failed you, not the ones who tried to help you.

[pangaia]

23. That is well said.

[Squinch]

76. And you would have gotten a subsidy that covered most of the increase if you were in

Obamacare.

But hey, good luck under Trump. An 86% increase is going to seem like paradise. If you have any health issues, you're not even going to be able to get health insurance.

[kimbutgar]

55. I would love to friend you on Facebook to see those posts

[kerry-is-my-prez]

62. I've been going nuts on Facebook w/DU down. Luckily, I only have 1-2 friends who admit to having

voted for Trump. The rest are silent or were pro-Hillary. We all grew up in Republican households too. Most have college degrees to PhDs so that's why so many of us turned against the Repubs.

[Matthew28]

7. Probably when

If they're old they're losing their medicare and SSI.
If they're young they're having to pay for their parents healthcare and offering the spare room.
They're having to pay for their children's basic k through 12 education as the system has been privatized.
They're breathing crappy air or getting sick of the gas mixed water.
Their wages are going down as corporations no longer need to pay a basic minimum wage.

This would be a cold doze of water in the face...And the republicans may just do it.

[doc03]

13. I brought the subject of cutting SS and Medicare to one a couple days ago. The answer

I got was it won't affect us. So as long as they screw the next generation who cares.

[pangaia]

24. You can tell that couple, oh yes it WILL affect them..

[lagomorph777]

8. Trump will discover to his chagrin that these folks tend toward "2nd amendment solutions"

Those heavily armed folks are not to be trifled with, or you may find yourself rifled with.

[bdamomma]

30. very true can you imagine if he wants to

take away their guns!!!! SMACK oh that would be interesting.

[MineralMan]

9. Probably when their aging parents lose their SS and Medicare and

they need money to live and for their many prescriptions and medical care. It's a lot of working people with parents who are on SS and Medicare.

[Wellstone ruled]

11. Your answer is

the real story. Add to it,the major increase in their Income Tax to off set their wealthy friends tax cuts.

[NickB79]

25. And when climate change destroys their homes

Through heat-fueled storms, flooding and droughts, and the insurance agencies finally decide they can't keep covering all these natural disasters anymore.

So there you'll sit, shit out of luck with a pittance to rebuild on and no FEMA support from the President.

[MineralMan]

41. Oh, FEMA will be there...

but to take you to the camp. Trump will make those camps a reality. I advise that you avoid the showers, though.

[NastyRiffraff]

61. They'll just blame it on the "libruls"

Or Hillary Clinton. Or Barak Obama. Anyone but the carnival barker they voted for. Cognitive dissonance can be very powerful; they won't admit they were conned and were stupid enough to believe a known liar and cheat.

[Oneironaut]

10. It's okay - he was a great leader on The Apprentice.

That's real, right?

[SummerSnow]

15. They know already. They're in denial

[UTUSN]

16. When the Regime jobs are all filled by billionaires?!1 n/t

[.99center]

17. About the time the nightly news starts airing a list

Of American casualties killed after Trump launches a major offensive involving our troops on the front line in the ME. Every economic problem will be blamed on Obama, the poor, and minorities.

[Sunlei]

18. like Canada just said about when republicans change global trade in favor of Corps. They'll notice..

when they can't afford food and bottled clean water.

[madinmaryland]

19. They don't fucking care, as the can still cling to their guns. Now if tRump were to clamp

down on gun ownership, there would be hell to pay.

[kimbutgar]

54. And women can't get abortions.

[Adrahil]

21. They'll find a way to blame it on Democrats

And minorities and immigrants. They are reality proof.

[Cosmocat]

40. THIS

nm

[Aristus]

22. Never.

If they had had enough intelligence to realize that, then they would have been too smart to have voted for him in the first place.

[RKP5637]

27. Way too fucken stupid. The US is the land of Idiocracy! They will never figure it out. Far

too stupid and gullible. They will sink the US.

[benld74]

28. I've said it for years

He is a modern day Grifter

[tanyev]

29. Interesting story on NPR this afternoon.

They tracked down a fake news 'entrepreneur'. He lives in California, is a registered Dem (sad), and is totally in it for the money. He said they did gung ho business with Trump supporters. His company has tried fake news stories aimed at liberals but as he said, 'they never take the bait'. So now the choice of millions of gullible fools will be running the country. That won't end well.

[rwheeler31]

31. If our military get hurt trying to protect his overseas properties

that might upset them.

[tinrobot]

32. It often takes a while to realize you have an abusive spouse...

They love him and now they're married to him. We know he's not going to treat them well, but they'll rationalize it. He may even throw them a few scraps to string them along.

I think it's going to take a while before they hit bottom and the full realization hits them. It is not going to be pretty, and they'll try to take us down with them.

[Riftaxe]

33. How long was it before the working class realized

that the current president was scamming them...multiply it by x2 they are blue collar dullards and all.

[rwheeler31]

38. President Obama?

What do you mean?

[raccoon]

68. Elucidate, my dear Watson. nt

[emulatorloo]

69. He consumed too many memes. Therefore, has Obama Derangement Syndrome.

[ileus]

36. They won't care, 90% of the work was done when he beat HRC.

Most of his voters I know only wanted her beat, nothing else he said or said he'd do mattered.

[CincyDem]

37. Trump did not and will not scam the white working class.

Trump's appeal wasn't in those trivial thing like policy or economic spending. The core of his support comes from him being a White Supremacist. To steal an analogy from an earlier posters, some of his supporters are "Lynch 'em" White Supremacists and some are "Sell the rope and look the other way" White Supremacists...but it's either guilt or guilt by association.

A long as he maintains the White Supremacist message and appoints like minded followers - nothing else will matter. There's no scam. It was the us who got caught up in all his messages...his supporters knew exactly what they were buying (and what they weren't).



Note: I have decided to adopt the TruthOut approach to "alt-right". It's a rebranding of White Supremacist philosophy/beliefs and I'm not going to do their PR work by trying to mainstream the phrase as a socially acceptable repositioning.

[Lotusflower70]

56. Yes he will

Of course he will scam the white working class. He already has. They think factory jobs are coming back but any jobs that come back will be automated.

[Generator]

39. Well soon

And then the national guard will be on them. Hopefully the military won't kill it's own citizens. I am just filled with doom and fear and hopefully incorrect about it all. Maybe the plan is to bring about a great depression and seize all power? Maybe another war? So many yummy potentials. (and of course Obama left us in a pretty good state so in might take until Trump's second term to totally annihilate the country-time to bale if you can) Pray for a new leader than would stand up to vote rigging, voter suppression and Putin or we r toast.

[NanceGreggs]

42. They'll figure it out soon enough ...

... and it will be all Obama's fault.

The Trump pResidency is going to be like the classic Catskills stand-up line: "The comic before me was so bad, the audience was booing him through my entire set."

[Statistical]

43. The 42nd of never. They will just spin a story about how brave hardworking Drumpf was unable to ...

help them out because of the ebil libtards and democraps aided by the lamestream media.

I mean anyone with critical thinking skills wouldn't have voted for that conman to begin with.

[Retrograde]

44. They'll blame it all on Clinton

Hillary or Bill, it doesn't matter.

[Solly Mack]

45. Most of the people who voted for Trump have been voting againt their own interest

for a long time and have yet to figure it out.

They buy into the appeals to emotion (bigotry, blaming others, etc..) instead of thinking about what they are really voting for and against.

Trump screwing them over will be blamed on the usual suspects, and Trump voters will - again - next time around, vote against their own best interest.

[DinahMoeHum]

46. AFAIC, they can just STFU and embrace the suck.

[jambo101]

47. Reasons why Trump won.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201407/anti-intellectualism-and-the-dumbing-down-america

[pbmus]

58. Ty for this link

[LeftInTX]

48. Reagan was relected dispite his screwing over the working class

Homelessness, mental hospital patients turned loose, high unemployment, layoffs and relocations in the midwest, farms foreclosed, home foreclosures, sky high interest rates.

[Boomerproud]

64. Yes. it's been going on since November 1980.

They loved him-he knew who to point at.

[BigDemVoter]

49. Well. . . Never.

Tricky Dick fucked them; Ronald Reagan had an orgy with them and fucked them repeatedly as have the rest of the Repig Party that raped them violently and often.

These people are incapable of getting out of this morass, as fake news and fake scandals just permeate the reality TV shows they flock to to distract them from the true reality of their lives. It's more amusing to watch The Apprentice than it is to worry about paying for health insurance or how to piece together three part-time, minimum wage jobs in order not to starve.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

50. When they lose their SS and Medicare.

[ehrnst]

51. Never. It's tribalism. If he fails, it's because "the establishment" didn't want his "integrity"

spoiling their grip on "the system."

[Fichefinder]

52. When are we going to stop

talking about the White Working Class as "them". I'm white. I work. I wear my name on my shirt. Lets take the "white" out of the equation and push for the issues that unite us.

Retired Military
Proud Union Member
Lifelong Democrat!!!!!

[Warpy]

57. Oh, I think a lot of them know

They voted for him out of rage and a desire to hit back at a crooked system that pushes them down farther every year.

I don't think they expected him to be gamed in by the EC. They expected to strut around for 4 years of "crooked Hillary" and business as usual, shaming the rest of us.

Didn't work out that way. Most of them have buyer's remorse and the boor hasn't even taken the oath of office.

If you know any of them, you know what I mean. They've been sober and subdued since the election.

[Freddie]

59. I think you're right

A lot of folks were making a "protest" vote and didn't think he'd actually win. Much like Brexit but no possibility of a do-over.

[romana]

63. Probably never

Their cognitive dissonance won't allow it. They aren't like the left who turn up their noses at the first sign of anything that doesn't fit their rigid ideology.

[HockeyMom]

65. As a Native New Yorker, all I can say

to the rest of the country Trump supporters, you have just bought yourselves a Bridge. I am sure The Donald, great tell it like it is NY Businessman, knows exactly what I mean by that.

[Takket]

66. never

ever with the GOP holding both houses and SCOTUS, if the racist policies trump supports wanted aren't implemented by Congress, they will just blame the minority bleeding heart dems for stopping it somehow.

[ananda]

67. A long time because.

There will be an endless barrage of Reeps and media
personalities blaming the Dems for anything that
goes bad with the GOP policies and those of the
Trump admin.

So many of those workers are just filled with hate
and bigotry, looking for any sort of confirmation bias
against Dems and Libruls.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

70. Hopefully by the mid terms

[UTUSN]

71. Kicking - *AGAIN*!1 n/t

[tenderfoot]

72. Never. They haven't been able to figure it out on their own since Ronald Reagan.

Why start now?

[Hamlette]

73. Start a war based on lies then trash the economy wherein they lose their life savings.

Bush had a 26% approval rating when he left office and we got Obama.

That's what it took to see through Palin.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

75. K&R

[heaven05]

77. they know it already

and most knew he would never deliver. QAll the new fuhrer did was tap into their fears of racial, gender, sexual orientation takeover from the superior white racist male and drove it to the bank,. All this intellectualizing and trying to clean up this campaign of the racist breitbart white supremacist Steve the anti-semite, white nationalist bannon just makes me laugh. NO ONE is mentioning that POS sitting behind the trumpfuhrer whispering in his ear. Keep trying to divert from the real danger, trumpfuhrer is an idiot being manipulated by some very evil white males that bode ill for any PoC, independent women and any others not white racist males and female. I can't wait for the MF to take office and blow all this intellectual bullshit out the water.

[NRQ891]

78. I would not want to alienate any groups, if a reallignment is possible in the future

Think how much things have changed since Bill Clinton ran in 1992 - entities that are now large institutions, hadn't ever been heard of - Yahoo (arguably, has come and gone), Google, Facebook - and even the internet itself

Compare this to the 'old guard' of American companies:

Ford - created 1903

General Electric - 1892

But both of these companies are 49 and 38 years (respectively) newer than the creation of the last political party, the GOP.

Trump didn't just defy the expectations of the Democratic party, he defied the GOP as well, breaking every rule known to politics to do it, at a fraction of the budget. Howard Dean was the first social media candidate, President Obama perfected it. Trump created news cycles with Tweets. Sanders went a very long way with mostly small donors. Jeb Bush had perhaps the largest war chest, yet went nowhere and out with record dispatch. So much so that many have already forgotten him

This election wasn't left vs right, it was populist vs establishment. I remember being bored in 'flyover' territory years ago, nothing but fundamentalist Christian radio for the drive, and tired of my own CDs. But it was interesting, a guy talking about how evangelicals were being 'played' by the GOP, strung along for social issues, but sold out on economic ones, the issues they raise their families on, and pointing out that the biggest 'family value' is feeding it. They're not all as dumb as you think. And they could be shaken out of the GOP, not into this party perhaps, but something else. (a lot of them have already become independent, George Will, for instance)

With the advance of technology, the 'proof of concept' of Trump's completely unconventional campaign style, I would not be shocked to see the rise of a 3rd populist party, somewhat libertarian on social issues but populist on economic ones. I think it could pull 1/4 of Democrats, 1/4 of Republicans, and 1/4 of Independents, giving it parity with other parties almost overnight. Please understand I'm not advocating such a thing, I'm stating that such a possibility is out there and must be considered, when assessing next elections. They say generals always fight the last war, but true preparation means some vision of a possible landscape. Ross Perot tried this in 1992, but it was 15 minutes before the internet, and still in the 'old rules' era. I don't see the 'Reform party' coming back, as it went FUBAR, but something fresh could start up