Premature death could help explain why Donald Trump is president, suggests study

[femmedem]

1. I don't think we needed a study to know Trump voters make bad decisions and have mental illness.

But more seriously, I wonder if it has something to do with willingness to take risks? I can see how if you aren't risk adverse, you might think, "What I'm doing isn't working. I think I'll try meth and vote Trump instead."

Or a nearly extinguished sense of hope. Decades ago, I briefly lived with a man who had deep financial troubles. We were working out a budget, and the only part of the budget he was emphatic about was that he was going to spend five dollars a week on lottery tickets. He knew it was a bad risk, but he also saw it as his only way out of his troubles. Maybe some Trump voters thought of a Trump presidency as a hail Mary pass.


Edited to add: this also suggests that racism thrives in a mean and hopeless environment, or that whatever leads to substance abuse and suicide also leads to racism and hate. You can't take racism out of the equation, because pockets of substance abuse and suicide in black communities didn't produce black Trump voters in substantial numbers.