People Keep Asking “Why Trump?”

Seventeen months after the 2016 election, people still wonder why Donald Trump won. As in any presidential election, there were many overlapping reasons why Trump won a majority of electoral votes, although he lost the popular vote.

Clinton’s negatives are easy to see. Conservatives had hammered at Hillary for two decades, creating a fictional monster whom some voters hated so much that they wanted to lock her up. James Comey’s decision to announce just before the election that her emails as Secretary of State were again being investigated played into these beliefs that she was unusually dishonest. Her campaign ignored warning signs in key northern states, choosing to chase votes in solidly Republican states.

The positives for Trump are more puzzling and controversial, and will occupy social scientists for decades. A new study by Diana C. Mutz, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, offers valuable insight. Mutz argues against the idea that has become a commonplace in discussions of 2016: that working-class voters, who had been left behind by economic change, voted for someone who seemed to promise them economic redemption. According to this theory, key voters thought about their “pocketbooks”, to use familiar political jargon.

Instead, Mutz supports a different explanation for Trump’s victory, one that also has been much discussed since the election: groups of Americans with traditionally high status felt threatened and voted for the candidate who seemed to support their continued dominance. White Christian men who were concerned about social changes in recent decades gravitated to Trump, whose rhetoric and behavior consistently prioritized whiteness, maleness, and Christian belief.

Enough voters were pushed into the Trump camp by the efforts to reverse traditional discrimination against blacks and women, by the increasing diversity of American society and a future when whites will be a minority, by the fact that Democrats had produced a black President and a female presidential candidate. Mutz summarizes her findings by noting “a sense that white Americans are under siege”.

Trump said things during the campaign about Mexicans and women and other people whom he did not respect that could raise doubts about his character, but in the overheated atmosphere of a presidential campaign, supporters tend to ignore any negatives about “their” candidate. Since then, however, Trump’s character has been displayed much more clearly: he lies about everything; his ego overwhelms all other considerations; he is ignorant about most areas of public policy; his treatment of women, including his wives, is despicable. Trump’s blundering performance as President brings up the second big question about current American politics: why do his voters keep supporting him?

Gallup weekly polls show little change in approval of Trump for the past year: 38% to 40% approve of him as President, and 56% to 59% disapprove. Among Republicans, his approval rating has bounced around between 81% and 89% for more than a year.

The theory that status threat motivated many of his voters offers a partial explanation. Every day the news about Trump offers support for white men and evangelical Christians who long to regain unchallenged dominance: his criticism of all organized efforts by black and white Americans to identify and resist racism; revelations about his pumped-up masculinity; his continued support for preventing Muslims from entering the US and for the evangelical political agenda. No other politician embodies so publicly the conviction that white Christian men should always be in charge in America.

But doesn’t character count? In particular, how could Trump continue to be so popular among evangelical Christians, who constantly talk about morality?

I have no study, no variables, no surveys to support the following idea, just intuition. I think Trump’s low character is in fact a significant part of his appeal, especially to the “moral minority”.

Nobody need feel morally inferior to Trump. Although he constantly boasts about his genius, nobody need feel intellectually inferior to Trump. As a person, Trump does not further threaten those who already feel their status threatened.

The fact that voters could give Barack Obama two terms as President and then elect Trump has caused no end of hand-wringing and confusion among political commentators. I believe that Obama’s obvious intellect, his high-mindedness, and his success contributed to the sense of siege among some worried Americans. A black man was better than they were at everything. Trump offers no such threat. It is easy to feel superior to Trump, even while supporting his political direction.

For the Trump voters who don’t believe that women, gays, blacks and immigrants deserve the same status as they do, Trump’s personal behavior is irrelevant. All they care about is making America great again, which they define as making white Christian males great again. Three-quarters of white evangelical Protestants believe American culture has changed for the worse since the 1950s, when women and African Americans were rigidly subordinated.

They don’t want to be lectured by a black or female Democrat about the virtues of diversity. They want an old-fashioned white male chauvinist pig to put them back on a pedestal. If that means more pollution, tax windfalls for the rich, and corruption in the Cabinet, so what?

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published by the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, May 1, 2018

What’s Wrong With Mainstream Media?

Sometimes I watch TV news programs in the evening, the much-maligned “mainstream media”. Lately the main subject has been scandals involving Donald Trump: adultery with a porn star and a Playboy model involving mysterious payoffs, and the long-running investigation of his and his campaign’s Russian connections. These are both complicated issues, involving his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, the “National Enquirer”, Sean Hannity, and many others.

Scandals involving an American President are genuine news. And these are genuine scandals. Although Trump and his allies constantly cry “Fake News!” the reporting about his ever-increasing problems has been professional and factual. The only things that have been fake have been the lies told by Trump and Co., which keep collapsing under the weight of new disclosures.

These are certainly headline stories. But the major TV news programs focus nearly exclusively and obsessively on the latest revelations, no matter how inconsequential. The announcement that Rudy Giuliani would be joining Trump’s defense team prompted countless long-winded speculations about why Giuliani was selected, what he might do, etc., etc. I’ve watched as one news hour with Famous Reporter A faded into the next news hour with Famous Reporter B, each inviting Expert C, D, and E to comment on the same bit of news.

Isn’t anything else happening in the world?

Contrast this TV “news” experience with reading a national newspaper. After Page One’s top stories, an international section offers a look at the world, where wars in Syria and Afghanistan and Niger involve American soldiers risking their lives. Remarkable political changes are happening on the Korean peninsula between North and South.

A national section offers stories about a day in American life, mostly outside of Washington, not involving famous politicians, but important to our own lives. Public school teachers are waging an unprecedented nationwide battle for decent school funding. In every state, local politicians are preparing for elections in November, which might result in an historic shift in national politics. Violations of the privacy of millions of people threaten to bring down some of the biggest companies on earth. The economy, whose fluctuations affect us all directly, is booming now, but warning signs are scary.

Not to mention all the interesting and sometimes significant news about popular culture, sports, housing, and health that might interest you and me.

Although the folks around Trump seek to kill the messenger with accusations of fake news, lack of evidence is not a problem with the major news channels. The weakness of mainstream TV news is the obsession with scandal, the endless repetition of information, and the stretch into speculation in order to keep talking about one all-consuming story. The relatively new format of warring political commentators offering openly partisan remarks about every issue does a disservice to those of us who just want to know what’s going on. These “experts” give us contrasting spins, rather than reasoned analysis. The newscaster has become a host asking questions, rather than a voice who can be trusted to tell us all sides of an issue based on the latest facts.

It may be no surprise that I prefer a newspaper as a source of real news. Instead of celebrities who have just come out of the make-up room to center stage, real news is better conveyed by journalists on the ground, not anonymous but not famous, not glamorous but well informed, trying to convey the truths they have discovered. Instead of TV producers with ratings on their minds deciding which few stories to broadcast, newspapers give us a wide choice of readings, each with much more information than anything broadcast on TV.

Long ago, Pew Research Center contrasted TV and newspaper news stories. They found that TV news offers more personality and less policy, and focuses more on the media themselves.

But the news about newspapers is discouraging. Since 2000, the number of newspaper firms in the US has fallen from 6200 to below 4500. Advertising revenue has dropped by two-thirds. I know that most of the best newspapers are shrinking in coverage as their staffs get cut. The “Denver Post” recently announced a 30% cut in newsroom staff, after many other recent cuts. There have been significant staff cuts at papers in Los Angeles, Montana, Jacksonville, FL, San Francisco, San Jose, Portland, OR, and Chicago, just to mention this year’s bad news.

I get my news from print journalists whom I read on my computer. The internet allows me to sample good writing on whatever topic I am working on from all over the world. I can easily check whether some story or piece of evidence has been made up by somebody or is being reported by many reputable journalists. I also subscribe to my local newspaper and to the NY Times. Wherever I am, I buy a newspaper.

That costs more than my “free” TV news. But you get what you pay for.

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, April 24, 2018

The Extremism of NRA Politics

For reasons we will puzzle over for decades, the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, provoked a mass political movement of young Americans, when all the other horrific school massacres did not. Gun politics is, at least now, big news.

Whenever public discussion of guns breaks into our daily lives, the NRA raises its voice, ostensibly to protect its interpretation of the Second Amendment. The NRA leadership must be especially concerned this time, since they are paying for a nationwide TV campaign,  “NRA: Freedom’s Safest Place”. Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre says the NRA’s political ideology “evokes the patriotism, freedom, history, traditions and struggles of ‘we the people’.”

I have no argument with the right of the NRA, or anybody else, to proclaim its interpretation of American law about guns. The only “we the people” who count for LaPierre are the minority who support the NRA.

But gun rights are not the main subject of the NRA’s current political intervention. Below the surface of public statements about gun legislation, the NRA sells its members a disturbing critique of our society. Under the title “Standing Guard | Colleges Spread Anti-Gun Sentiment” on the NRA website, LaPierre says this about American higher education. Every sentence is worth notice.

“American freedom faces no greater threat than from our academic institutions, where the most basic fundamental principles upon which our nation was founded are aggressively attacked by extreme socialists posing as honest professors. Principles upon which America has become the greatest nation in the world—constitutional freedom, free-market capitalism and individual responsibility—have been replaced with Marxism, socialism and a perverse culture of politically correct societal collectivism. We know that, at the end of the day, the wave of socialism we face threatens all of our freedoms and could very well destroy our nation.

Make no mistake. Their goal is not just to create a campus of socialism. They lust for a nation of socialism. They’ll warp every young mind they can get their hands on, to pervert the American values we hold dear to create a brand new, socialist voter to send to the polls. If their socialist takeover is successful, they’ll do everything they can to render Trump ineffective, with an end goal to replace him with a screaming socialist in 2020. And then they’ll come for us … for our freedom and for our guns. That is the tsunami of socialism that threatens every law-abiding gun owner and freedom-loving American in this country.”

In the NRA’s magazine, “American Hunter”, this statement of principle appears under a more threatening title: “Our Colleges are Breeding Grounds for Socialists Who Will Take Our Guns”.

This is not mainly about guns. LaPierre’s America is mortally threatened by organized socialists and brain-washed youth, echoes of Joseph McCarthy in 2018.

During the 1950s, politicians who doubted McCarthy’s crazy charges, but who thought their personal political interests could be served by being quiet, created a federal government that embodied exactly what McCarthy and his ilk supposedly warned about: an ideological state which ignored the Constitution and used the law to punish political opponents. By the time a few courageous politicians raised critical voices, government had damaged the lives of civil rights activists, labor leaders, writers, filmmakers, and teachers.

Are we repeating a terrible history? Our Republican-dominated government takes the NRA’s cash and praises its stance on gun rights. The biggest Congressional recipients of NRA money are all Republicans: 51 Republicans in the Senate and 41 in the House get more NRA dollars than any of their Democratic colleagues.

Politicians who praise the NRA also implicitly endorse LaPierre’s extremist rejection of American society. They support the accusation that college campuses, including those in their districts, teach revolutionary socialism and hatred for American institutions. They believe that “academic elites are brainwashing our youth like never before.” They agree that “every freedom-loving American” is endangered by a home-grown socialist conspiracy. They fear the greatest threat to our freedom: “our academic institutions”.

My congressman, Darin LaHood, is running for reelection this year. He proudly announced that the NRA gave him an A-rating, saying, “I am grateful for the NRA’s support.” He accepted $1000 from them, as did all of the other six Republican congressmen from Illinois. LaHood’s page on gun control on his website is mainly about how much he appreciates the NRA.

Mr. LaHood, please tell the voters in our District whether you support the NRA’s broader political ideology, as announced by its spokesman and published in its official media.

Do you think that socialists have “hijacked” the institutions of higher learning in Illinois? Do you believe that Illinois faculty are promoting communism out of a “lust for a nation of socialism”? Will a “wave of socialism” will “destroy our nation”? Or do you think that NRA propaganda is itself dangerous?

Are you willing to defend the men and women who teach in our state’s and our nation’s colleges and universities from NRA accusations?

Republican and Democratic politicians who oppose restrictions on gun rights, also need to be clear about their stance on NRA political extremism. If your congressman is supported by and supports the NRA, does he (nearly all are “he”) also endorse the NRA’s radical rejection of contemporary American life?

The NRA is not protecting the Second Amendment, it is attacking America. Do they agree?

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, April 17, 2018