Real Life Stories for Voters

[Phoebe]

So putting aside the question of moral responsibility for the moment, if some of us don't want this type of outcome in the future, what exactly has to be done about it?

Here are some facts about Trump voters, taken from actual political scientists studying the outcome and not the media commentariat's crappy speculation. The obvious ones are that they are more often male, white, and older; more often far-right compared to moderate-right and more likely to identify as Christian and to say religion is important in their daily life. They more often live in homogeneous rural places where the population is low density and white. They aren't spending a lot of time around people of other races or religions. They aren't as likely to work low-wage service sector jobs, and they aren't the workers who have actually lost their manufacturing jobs. They tend to make more money on average than the non-Trump voters, and they live in lower cost areas, so it's not like they're worse off than others, on average. However, they're more likely to have certain health conditions like diabetes or long-term disabilities, and less likely to have a college degree or other higher degree, so that might produce a lot of people who are "stuck" in situations where economic advancement seems unlikely even if as a group they're faring better than some other workers. They're more likely to be pro-life but they're also less likely to live in areas that have access to abortion clinics.

Appealing to this group's sense of fear and shared white identity was certainly successful, and maybe some of them won't be appealed to easily by other kinds of persuasion. However, if you think about what actually changes people's minds and how that kind of experience can be delivered, what are the options? You might come to accept views that mesh with your self interest, or you might realize your views or values are inconsistent in a way that makes you uncomfortable, or you might be ashamed of your views, or reality might just confront you directly. What about self-interest? Voters like these who make comparatively less of their money via capital investments are consistently supporting people whose policies are designed to give breaks to the people who make the very most money on capital investments. Not sure any big revelation is going to clear that up; indeed, they admire such people and seem to think lightning could strike and propel them to a similar situation, in which case capital gains taxes had better be low and regulation eliminated! Awareness of basic stuff like "what is in my drinking water" might be more helpful. Farmers aren't ignoring climate change and pollution as much now because they actually experience the effects and water is their livelihood. So it might be important to shift the conversation to concrete things that are already having an effect on people.

What about things like the Muslim registry and the general fear of Black urban youth and voter fraud and Mexican immmigrants? I would guess a lot of Trump voters fear others and close tribal ranks because they don't have much positive contact with people who are very different from them. It's pretty easy to demonize gay couples and not want to bake them a wedding cake until it's your own kid or nephew or neighbor. It's easy to see black youth protesting police violence as very scary until you hear their personal stories and learn the details about their lives. That probably never happens to a big swath of Trump voters; however, they are still getting the message that liberals find them deplorable. I don't think you can simply talk people out of their racist views - and yes, I think most Trump voters (like most people!) are much more racist than they like to admit. Still, their actions might change if they had experiences and stories that humanize the "other", to replace the hostility or fear.

How do people get these experiences? Well, one way is college, which helps explain why a group of voters that is less likely to have gone to college and more likely to live in a homogeneous community is not having those experiences. It's not like going to college makes people suddenly start identifying unsupported claims, though hopefully they refine that skill. One thing college does really effectively is put people into environments where they learn new things about people who are very different from them, in an environment largely removed from the narrow social hierarchies that may still matter in high schools. Not everyone likes this or appreciates other people more as a consequences, but most people do learn to respect and appreciate people who have quite different life stories and values from their own. This all happens at a time when most students are starting to build their independent adult lives, and they're assessing the options, sometimes struggling to find the right path.

They might think their own interests are aligned with various different groups of people and not simply the ones they most closely associated with their own little tribe. Right now I very much doubt the average rural, older white male Trump voter thinks that the economic or liberty concerns of a black female service economy worker have anything to do with his own. But if you think about what the BEST candidate in this whole mess was reminding us, both of those people are being screwed over royally by an oligarchy that has little incentive to improve their lives or freedoms. How do voters across these gaps come to realize that they have far more in common, in terms of interests and needs, than not?

At the same time, we really DO have to keep pushing the message that nasty tribalism is totally unacceptable. I know things are better for my own kids' generation in that regard than they were for mine, so I have hope that the message is working. Trump voters know it's not acceptable and feel frustrated by that; the alt-right is telling them these feelings are okay and natural. No, they're not okay! It is not okay to look at children of different races and think, sorry, not my tribe! Best if they leave. I really don't know how you solve that problem without positive personal contact with others. This kid is going to be your doctor, accountant, or teacher someday; they're going to work with or alongside you. Rejecting them just means you made your own community worse, not better. But that is not what people think.