this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters are motivated by their prejudices, not economic concerns, social scientists contend. Will Democrats stop trying to win their votes?

In January, Smith and his University of Kansas colleague, associate sociology professor Eric A. Hanley, published a 47-page paper deconstructing the Republican president’s appeal. Building on decades of scholarship about the lure of authoritarianism and their own analysis of American voting psychology in 2012 and 2016, the social scientists make an argument that some may find offensive and others unsurprising.

It goes something like this: Trump’s biggest supporters are motivated by bigotry and want him to hurt the people they dislike.


Note: There's a lot to unpack in this article, and this just seems to be the hook.

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[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

"Centrist" pundits be like: "No, it's the democrats, who went too far by language policing whites for calling blacks a historically accepted word blacks use in rap music, and other double standards, especially within law enforcement, favoring blacks over other races."

[–] Freshparsnip@lemm.ee 6 points 4 hours ago

HOLY FUCK! PEOPLE WHO VOTE FOR ETHNIC CLEANSING ARE RACIST!

[–] inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago

Sigh... They're not racist they're just "economically anxious".

[–] Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 hours ago

Me, a social scientist as well: Bubbler noises

[–] socsa@piefed.social 6 points 13 hours ago

The entire problem is very specifically that they lie about the economy in lockstep, and the media reports it and then idiot centrists are like "oh yeah I guess the economy is bad? People keep talking about it so it must be true."

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 6 points 15 hours ago

Wasn't this settled way back when?

Anyway, I seem to remember that digging deeper on donvict's base after Hillary's deplorables "gaffe" (not a fucking "gaffe" to tell the goddamn truth about awful people) found that she was basically correct - a portion of them are racists, xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists...

[–] angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com 3 points 13 hours ago

They should never have been trying to court his "most ardent" supporters to begin with. It's the swing voters and non voters they need. (And the centrist agenda isn't the way to do it.)

[–] ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 13 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Does the Pope shit in the woods?

[–] socsa@piefed.social 3 points 13 hours ago

Is the bear Catholic?

[–] SPRUNT@lemmy.world 7 points 19 hours ago

I hear the new pope likes camping, so likely, yes.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 4 points 15 hours ago

It goes something like this: Trump’s biggest supporters are motivated by bigotry and want him to hurt the people they dislike.

Hence his supporter whining that he's not hurting the people he "needs" to be hurting. I'm sure many of us personally know people just like this and most definitely do get a chubby when they think about someone like donvict actively harming certain segments of society.

[–] elbucho@lemmy.world 8 points 17 hours ago

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: YEEEEESSSSSSSSSS.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 2 points 14 hours ago

The Trump supporters I know definitely are

[–] SnarkoPolo@lemm.ee 8 points 19 hours ago

Their findings will be published in the "Journal Of No Shit Sherlock."

[–] archonet@lemy.lol 10 points 22 hours ago (1 children)
[–] GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 19 hours ago

No. Like the earth, a circle is flat.

mic drop

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago

Took them long to find out the obvious answer. Nice they finally did.

Hmmm, I wonder if the political base that waves Confederate and nazi flags, serves a fascist dictatorship, and works alongside fascists globally might be racist? What a real head scratcher that is, who knows really

/s

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 41 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm sure many don't think they're racist but most if not all probably buy into the line that we all have an equal playing field in life and any statement to the contrary is just victimhood.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 3 points 13 hours ago

Nobody wakes up in the morning, gets out bed, and enters the world with the intent to be an asshole. Yet there are a ton of assholes in the world.

Everyone does shitty things from time to time. The difference between an asshole and a good person is that the good person realizes when they've been shitty and tries to learn something from the experience.

[–] SupaTuba@lemm.ee 22 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The ones I talk to, now, openly admit that Muslims are "scary", gays are "disgusting", and women are "lesser".

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

The same bunch usually think going to university somehow "taints" someone.

Of course they either overlook or don't know that plenty of the people they vote for went to college, too.

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 8 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

What scares me more isnt the men who think women are lesser. What scares me are the women who think women are lesser, and want men who think that too

[–] DrivebyHaiku@lemmy.ca 3 points 21 hours ago

Women who are like that usually change their mind after a couple of years buckled into the yoke. There's currently a whole group of women stuck in golden handcuffs in the trad wife influencer community who are miserable in their relationships but making too much ad money to consider stopping.

[–] GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 19 hours ago

Talking to my aunt Linda, eh?

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 99 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] techt@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Holy fuck, an exception to Betteridge's Law

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Not necessarily, some of them could be not racist but too dumb to see the conflict.

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[–] yournamehere@lemm.ee 1 points 14 hours ago

"are we the baddies?"

[–] GooberEar@lemmy.wtf 57 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Honestly, my experience is entirely anecdotal, and I completely admit that. I have not read this article yet, so I don't even know what the conclusion is (but I can make an assumption).

Disclaimer being what it is, literally all of the full-on racist people I know or have known are also MAGA conservatives. And conversely, all the MAGA people I know or have known are way more racist than average. I say that from the perspective that, at least in the USA, most people have racial biases to a certain extent.

I've been told things like "You don't have the right skin color to take the bus into the city", meaning because I'm Caucasian with "white" skin, I would somehow be an outlier among the rest of the folks taking the bus. Many, many times I've heard statements like "we can't even say [the N-word] anymore even though that's what they call themselves all the time" and let me tell you the people saying that don't say "N-word" they say the real deal that rhymes with chigger. They'll claim illegal "Mexicans" took their jobs, without a moment's thought about who hired those "Mexicans" or what nationality those "Mexicans" are. There's really no skin color other than white-white that doesn't receive some hate.

Anyway, this is just old man ranting at this point, and it may even be too long to be readable, so let me summarize it with FUCK RACISTS & FUCK MAGA.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 1 points 47 minutes ago

Sigh I've heard my parents and their neighbors complain about "all the Jews" buying houses to rent to "all the Mexicans" who now live in their neighborhood. (Hint: there is no way that 100% of the "Mexicans" they refer to are actually Mexican. But being so nuanced isn't a skill racists tend to have.)

I hate houses being bought up by big landlords, too, and I know that being constantly bugged by realtors (who just want to turn around and rent those houses out anyway) is something that bothers those particular home owners. I would be great if we could talk about those problems for what they are, without bringing in people's religion, culture, or national origin. The only war is a class war, and although even these people agree that a class war of some type exists, it seems that some people love to hate so much that it just gets added to a pile of things to hate.

It's almost like they're the opposite of polyamorous, some kind of poly-misery, where they can't hate just one group. Ugh.

[–] YoiksAndAway@lemmy.zip 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I am the son of MAGA parents. They were never overtly racist. They were always kind to my non-white friends and their non-white neighbors, always thinking that they were "one of the good ones". But since Trump has validated their latent racism, it has become more ugly. I think that's more insidious and dangerous than empowering the lunatic fringe, honestly.

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Trump made a lot of people who thought it was a societal norm to be kind and hide their biases feel like it was okay, and that felt freeing to them. It’s also why many of them bray about freedom

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

When these types talk about "freedom" or "liberty", they usually mean the Southern definition.

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[–] xyzzy@lemm.ee 26 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The average immigrant from Guatemala has had about 2-4 years of school in their entire life. They don't speak English and will never be fluent. There a decent chance they're not even literate in Spanish.

Now imagine who you have to be for that person to be a threat to your job.

[–] MolecularCactus1324@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] nanoswarm9k@lemmus.org 6 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

"Journalist remembers social sciences exist and start listening 10+ years late to see if it snags some web traffic" Trust me, social science and history have been on red alert this whole time.

[–] N0t_5ure@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago
[–] gargolito@lemm.ee 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They're not all racists but all racists are maga

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[–] DrFistington@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

Your just now deciding to weigh in on this? After how fucking long?

His base is fueled by a fear that the "wrong" people (people that look, speak,dress, act, believe differently, and that I don't really know) are trying to take the country from the "good" people (people like me, that I know).

The issue is that the only cure is to make people get outside of their box. I really started to realize this when I began working with more departments/clinicians in the hospital I was working at. What I've found is that the more you get out there and interact with people who aren't like you, the more you realize that broad generalizations aren't really worth a damn, and that there's more good people of all types than you'd think. The main thing they have in common is that they aren't fucking shitwad billionaires.

I used to show up early for work to catch the morning rush of doctors in the physicians lounge and see a Muslim doctor or two praying after being there since 2am because they were on call, and decided to round on all their consults before they left, and here I am rolling in hungover just waiting to pound out another 8 hours so I can go home and get drunk and high for another night.

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