Wednesday, November 09, 2016

The election 1

It's a bit late here in Melbourne so I'll leave some more considered thoughts about the Trump election win until later. However, I thought some of the exit poll data was interesting and will briefly comment below.

First, the left-wingers on my social media feeds are apoplectic about the following table:



What the left finds depressing about this data is that it was not just white men who voted Trump, but white women as well. The usual taunts and jeers directed at white men won't work here. To me, it is a tantalising glimpse of what life could be like, when men and women are not set apart the way they have been for so long.

Here's another interesting one. Educated whites voted for Trump. He won amongst college graduates. This could be an important shift amongst the educated away from liberal group think.



The group that is still majority liberal are college educated white women, but even here the gap is not that large (45% voted Trump).



The following table is also significant. Trump won the majority of younger white voters. It's interesting too that his strongest support was amongst those aged 45 to 64 rather than the oldest group.



This too is striking. Despite religious leaders often being liberal, the religious rank and file went majority Trump. Those with no religion are, for the time being, still mostly liberal (I think there's a chance this will change, as the next generation of secular intellectuals are starting to break with liberalism).



What was the most important issue for Trump supporters? Immigration. Those who do not support open borders and globalisation went for Trump.



Finally, it is noteworthy that Trump's supporters identify as conservative but want change. This might seem contradictory, but it makes sense. If you live in a society with a liberal establishment, then a conservative doesn't want to conserve the current direction of society, he wants to change it. Hence the following tables:



So Trump supporters believe that Trump should be more conservative than Obama. But they also believe that the country is on the wrong track:



They also believe that life for the next generation of Americans is likely to get worse:



Therefore, they voted for a candidate who they hope can bring change:



P.S. I've simplified this commentary by treating Clinton supporters as liberal and Trump supporters as conservative. In truth, voting Republican is not a reliable indicator that someone is not a liberal - some Republicans are what I would call right-liberals. However, the debate this time around was so unusually polarised along liberal/conservative fault lines that I've cut myself a little slack in my use of terminology.

11 comments:

  1. One small point about the Catholic vote. I was encouraged that a majority had voted for Trump, but it is skewed by so many of the predominantly Clinton-supporting Latinos being Catholic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're right. Trump won white Catholics 60% to 37%, i.e. he scored just as highly amongst white Catholics as amongst Protestants.

      Delete
  2. There's a considerable amount of whining and gnashing of teeth over "white women" in the liberal press. They are to be blamed for Trump's victory and excoriated for betraying women 'all over the world'. I think there's something positive to take from this apart from the obvious case of women voting for Trump. White women are now seeing that all their openness, all their good girl feminism and, ethnic-masochism and embracing of inclusion counts for nothing so long as they do not vote progressive, no matter how unpalatable that choice may be. There's no middle ground allowed between progressive and white supremacist facism.

    We are seeing a repeat of the Brexit bigotry from the Left, and the Left simply cannot see it. They are so far up their own backsides at this point with their "right side of history" rhetoric and fear mongering over white supremacy.

    It's a good time to be on the right.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm a white college graduate non-religious male. I'm not a conservative but am right-wing. Globalism can only mean decades of declining living standards for the Western countries as they average out with the 3rd world countries. It also means an ever-changing cultural environment. I have never been allowed to live in the culture in which I was raised. This is why I was an enthusiastic Trump supporter.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nobody could justly complain about an averaging-out of income standards if it was accomplished via the merits and work of those so rewarded. Unfortunately, it is being done on the socialist model of ensuring that those who have earned the money pay for everyone else. The only way that other cutures can accomplish what we have achieved is to adopt our own and abandon theirs. That includes our religion, Christianity, because it is the abandonment of this that has fatally weakened us. I merely stress that because you make a point of being non-religious. I myself believe that secularism is far too weak a gruel to survive the onslaught of Islam, whereas Christianity has always had success in resisting it.

      Delete
    2. That includes our religion, Christianity, because it is the abandonment of this that has fatally weakened us. I merely stress that because you make a point of being non-religious. I myself believe that secularism is far too weak a gruel to survive the onslaught of Islam

      I'm an agnostic but I agree. Secularism leads to scepticism, scepticism leads to nihilism and nihilism leads to cultural suicide.

      On the other hand Christianity as it currently exists in the West is worse than secularism. It's weaker, even more feminised, even more self-hating and even keener for cultural suicide.

      If Christianity is to save us it needs to be the old school Christianity.

      I actually see liberalism as a much bigger long-term danger than Islam. Liberalism rots society from the inside.

      Delete
    3. Christianity is not mandatory for all people in a given society but it is key. It arrives both communally and individually by God's grace and is independent of political or cultural maneuvers. Avant-garde Leftist-atheists cannot understand this and so they resort to denunciating all religion. A spiritual vacuum cannot be filled by material or intellectual schemes.

      Trump has put some distance between us and a nihilistic, secular future.

      Delete
  4. Fascinating analysis. I thought Trump was unelectable. I was wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Amazing with all the protests, consider the hypocrisy of the Left when they were outraged when Trump said he might not accept the results of he lost. They cried that he doesn't respect the democratic system.
    Their true colours are shining through.

    ReplyDelete