Another diary posted this data from Pew Research and asks the question: Why did Trump win white working class voters? I find myself asking this question instead: Why did the Democratic Party lose the WWC vote?
The earlier diary provided a list of reasons people in the WWC voted for Trump, mostly policy and sociological explanations. There are surely many reasons they voted as they did, almost all of them covered on this site.
As always, I agree with some, find other explanations unconvincing, but, hey, it’s useful to examine what we did and didn’t do. There has been some discussion about the role of emotional messaging — basically communication with emotional appeals. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, both during the campaign and in the first days of the Trump Administration.
There hasn’t been so much really specific consideration of emotional messaging. I’d like to extend the conversation about emotional communication, including some aspects that I think might not have received sufficient attention.
My first point is that Trump is a rich celebrity with a gorgeous wife and a (seemingly) beautiful life. On the coasts, we see and hear from billionaires and other elites relatively frequently. Many attend to cultural and social events that are on our radar. In flyover country, contact with the rich and famous is infrequent, except for the Family on the Hill in My Town.
Trump was different. He was a glossy figure from the Big Apple and Tinseltown who not only spoke their language — he spoke it to them. Often in person and online in social media. His supporters had their private language, the online fist bump that marked them as sophisticates, #MAGA and cuck, for example.
My second point is that we don’t talk about the feelings of self-efficacy and power white working class Trump voters felt when they organized online with such enthusiasm. I don’t think they had engaged that way previously. And I am certain they did not get the attention of the wider world beyond their alt buddies and CT sites.
By contrast, it’s old hat to us. We progressives have been engaged politically via social media since 2008. And we’ve received tons of high-profile public props for that. Mainstream magazines and news pubs wrote extensively about us, in rather glowing terms — not so much about them.
I suspect WWC people have felt excluded from that part of our world too — high cost of computing equipment and Internet access compared to Midwest incomes, not so much workplace computing.
In short, I think we need to go beyond the policy issues and consider carefully the emotional and emotion-evoking image elements of the Trump campaign.
Let me offer this analogy as to why I think the lists of sociological resentments and policy decisions fail to adequately explain the discontent of WWC voters:
I am not a health professional — know little about biology. When I’m in pain and go to the doctor, I can’t tell her much more than how it feels. I don’t know the systems or how they interact. Thus, I am frequently wrong about the problem or its solutions — I really do have to go to the doc for that.
Similarly, I think WWC people with low levels of education know they are in pain and they want (and have wanted for a while) someone, anyone to notice and respond. Trump did that. I think they don’t know exactly why their situation has so deteriorated.
People don’t like to blame themselves. Trump gave them a good list of people and conditions to blame and simple solutions. He projected the images of immense wealth and success. The campaign made them feel important and powerful.
What could work better than that?
Let me briefly compare the HRC campaign. They didn’t spread far and wide comprehensive, clear, observable problem/solution sets, except for that oft-repeated pathetic line, “go to my website.” ...as if all voters can or will do that. As if it was hers alone.
They did a good job importing glamour through celebrities. But they failed to surround her with glamour and excitement of her own.
The campaign let Bernie and others intimidate them into acting all defensive, embarrassed, and ashamed, communicating that the case against her was true...the opposite of nimble. Worse, the campaign failed to capitalize on her high profile Wall Street contacts and speeches, using them to demonstrate and explain an economic program that would lead to more jobs and prosperity for everybody...for both Main St. and Wall St.
I think we all understand that the campaign was inadequate in attending to the Midwest, taking it for granted. It relied on refashioning the Obama urban/ minority/professional class coalition. It wasn’t enough.
Given the levels of voter suppression that we will face in 2020, it probably won’t be enough next time either. I think we are going to have to completely overhaul our statements of Dem values, problem/solution sets, and emotional appeals.
Here are my thoughts about getting there:
- The process of understanding how to recover from the election losses needs to be public.
- It needs to engage people.
- People need to feel listened to.
- It must occur in all 50 states and all kinds of localities.
- It needs to be fun, interesting, surprising, and helpful — really contributing to people’s lives.