My immediate reaction was to spit out my cereal.
As a person who believes in treating others with respect and dignity, I was mad (but not surprised) when I saw the video of Trump's crude statements on Friday. In this way I felt truly sorry for the GOP. I do not doubt for a minute that there are GOP and Democrat politicians who have said something just as crude once or twice (at least). Yet in this year's race the Donald is the big elephant in the room, and it seems that the establishment GOP is sacrificing its face to longtime Republicans and progressives of the world by standing behind him (not that progressives tend to have a favorable view of the GOP in the first place anyway).
As the weekend went on I began to have hope--perhaps NOW people will see the light and look for other candidates to vote for besides Trump. That hope grew as--one by one--the big wigs of the GOP distanced themselves from trump.
As the weekend went on I began to have hope--perhaps NOW people will see the light and look for other candidates to vote for besides Trump. That hope grew as--one by one--the big wigs of the GOP distanced themselves from trump.
The presidential debate gave me a little bit more hope; surely the American public would be weirded out by Trump lurking behind Clinton, which is strange considering he says that he isn't what all the columnists have pegged him out to be.
And yet. No.
If anyone is wondering why people still would support Trump, I would point them in the direction of The Righteous Mind: Why People are Divided By Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, who looks at moral psychology in relation to politics.
One of the big ideas in the book is that the human mind can be likened to an elephant being controlled by a rider. The elephant represents our biases, tendencies, and intuitions. The rider is our logic and rationale.
To summarize his view, the mind's elephant is something that can be controlled, but it's also very hard to do (hence the elephant metaphor). Even when you try to use your logic and reasoning, he says, the rider will often go the way of the elephant. Confirmation bias is an example of this, because with the power of Google you can always find a study or an article that supports your point of view (and you can find a study or an article that contradicts what you find).
It's too simple to say that Trump's supporters want him to be president because their biases align with his proposed policies; that much is obvious. But let's take a look at one demographic: women voters. One would think that all women, at least, would defect from Trump after this weekend, right?
Nate Silver's map says otherwise:
I have a liberal-leaning elephant, so I was happy to see that women are forecasted to overall vote against Trump in the election, but what about those red states? Surely the mothers, daughters and wives in those states would feel indignant about Trump's comments, especially since women voters are liberal and vote democrat, right?
Turns out there's something else at work.
Before this semester I believed that all women were Democrats; I live in California, and the first openly Republican woman I ever met was my AP Government teacher from my senior year of high school (and even then, she grew up in Arizona) But after looking up some statistics I realized that it isn't the case. It seems that white women voters are a major group to appeal to; they consistently have the highest voter registration and voter turnout rates.
White women voters also vote Republican, and have voted for the Republican candidate in the presidential election for the past decades.
And based on Nate Silver's map, it seems that for women voters in conservative states (who are probably mostly white), it would take more than a lewd video filmed a decade ago for their elephants to be swayed towards Hillary Clinton's camp.
Since my elephant is only slightly more in control than my rider, my first impulse is to feel outraged that women would still want to vote Trump after literally everything he said about women. But perhaps there's something more. By applying Haidt's so-called Moral Foundations Theory provides some explanations why some people might support Trump so strongly, but that will probably be a post for another day.
Until then, I invite readers to check out the Moral Foundations Theory website and think on this:
And yet. No.
If anyone is wondering why people still would support Trump, I would point them in the direction of The Righteous Mind: Why People are Divided By Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, who looks at moral psychology in relation to politics.
One of the big ideas in the book is that the human mind can be likened to an elephant being controlled by a rider. The elephant represents our biases, tendencies, and intuitions. The rider is our logic and rationale.
To summarize his view, the mind's elephant is something that can be controlled, but it's also very hard to do (hence the elephant metaphor). Even when you try to use your logic and reasoning, he says, the rider will often go the way of the elephant. Confirmation bias is an example of this, because with the power of Google you can always find a study or an article that supports your point of view (and you can find a study or an article that contradicts what you find).
It's too simple to say that Trump's supporters want him to be president because their biases align with his proposed policies; that much is obvious. But let's take a look at one demographic: women voters. One would think that all women, at least, would defect from Trump after this weekend, right?
Nate Silver's map says otherwise:
I have a liberal-leaning elephant, so I was happy to see that women are forecasted to overall vote against Trump in the election, but what about those red states? Surely the mothers, daughters and wives in those states would feel indignant about Trump's comments, especially since women voters are liberal and vote democrat, right?
Turns out there's something else at work.
Before this semester I believed that all women were Democrats; I live in California, and the first openly Republican woman I ever met was my AP Government teacher from my senior year of high school (and even then, she grew up in Arizona) But after looking up some statistics I realized that it isn't the case. It seems that white women voters are a major group to appeal to; they consistently have the highest voter registration and voter turnout rates.
White women voters also vote Republican, and have voted for the Republican candidate in the presidential election for the past decades.
And based on Nate Silver's map, it seems that for women voters in conservative states (who are probably mostly white), it would take more than a lewd video filmed a decade ago for their elephants to be swayed towards Hillary Clinton's camp.
Since my elephant is only slightly more in control than my rider, my first impulse is to feel outraged that women would still want to vote Trump after literally everything he said about women. But perhaps there's something more. By applying Haidt's so-called Moral Foundations Theory provides some explanations why some people might support Trump so strongly, but that will probably be a post for another day.
Until then, I invite readers to check out the Moral Foundations Theory website and think on this:
- There people who fear the notion of domestic terrorism more than they care about lewd comments made about married women who let Trump near them 10 years ago.
- There are people who care more about others who try to restrain their speech than they want to consider people's feelings on a controversial topic.
- There are people who are willing to listen to people who agree with them more than they want to listen to the mainstream that seems to distort the truth more and more each day.
If the above triggered your elephant against me in any way, good. Let's have more conversations on this. When it comes to thinking about who Trump's supporters are and why they support him, I don't think falling into old tropes (such as the uneducated go to Trump and the university graduates go to Hillary) is going to cut it for this race.
There's something more at work here where the possibilities range from xenophobia to religious values; despite not being the biggest fan of the GOP I don't think the majority of its voters are utterly stupid. They know that Trump isn't the best candidate in the world. But what is it about Trump that moves their elephants towards him? Is it just that these voters hate Hillary that much? Or is there more than that?
The elephant theory is actually a really simple yet fascinating way of understanding why people vote the way they do. I really liked how you used that metaphor throughout this piece. As for the women voters that still support Trump, I am just as shocked as you are. Any self respecting woman would be entirely offended by his continuous disrespect for women and minorities alike. But, my one theory behind this, and it may seem harsh, is that these women who continue to support Trump are likely the same type of women who believe they "belong in the kitchen" and listen to whatever their husbands say. They continue to support Trump, albeit with hesitation, because their values are likely formed by their husbands. The sad truth is that the stratification of gender roles is deeply rooted in the Trump base. And I think that's why he maintains some support with women.
ReplyDeleteYou definitely have something going here, especially in that last paragraph. I always thought to myself, "is Hillary really that bad?" From my standpoint, I don't think she is. I actually think she's great. She just didn't have the likable, charismatic factor about her that we found in Obama in 2008.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, they rather watch their party become the laughing stock of Government - even though they now have their own in the Executive Branch - than to vote for Hillary Clinton.
And primarily, i'm surprised the women who have been voting were able to brush off all the negative connotations he used against them. It's pretty ridiculous that somebody this blatantly stupid has been elected to become the leader of the free world.