11/9/2016, "Donald Trump’s Victory Was Built on Unique Coalition of White Voters," NY Times, Nicholas Confessore and Nate Cohn
"Donald J. Trump's America flowered through the old union strongholds of the Midwest,
along rivers and rail lines that once moved coal from southern Ohio and
the hollows of West Virginia to the smelters of Pennsylvania.
It
flowed south along the Mississippi River, through the rural Iowa
counties that gave Barack Obama more votes than any Democrat in decades,
and to the Northeast, through a corner of Connecticut and deep into
Maine.
And
it extended through the suburbs of Cleveland and Minneapolis, of
Manchester, N.H., and the sprawl north of Tampa, Fla., where
middle-class white voters chose Mr. Trump over Hillary Clinton.
One
of the biggest upsets in American political history was built on a
coalition of white voters unlike that of any other previous Republican
candidate, according to election results and interviews with voters and
demographic experts.
Mr. Trump’s coalition comprised not just staunchly conservative Republicans in the South and West. They were joined by millions of voters in the onetime heartlands of 20th-century liberal populism — the Upper and Lower Midwest — where white Americans without a college degree voted decisively to reject the more diverse, educated and cosmopolitan Democratic Party of the 21st century, making Republicans the country’s dominant political party at every level of government.
Mr. Trump’s coalition comprised not just staunchly conservative Republicans in the South and West. They were joined by millions of voters in the onetime heartlands of 20th-century liberal populism — the Upper and Lower Midwest — where white Americans without a college degree voted decisively to reject the more diverse, educated and cosmopolitan Democratic Party of the 21st century, making Republicans the country’s dominant political party at every level of government.
Mr.
Trump spoke to their aspirations and fears more directly than any
Republican candidate in decades, attacking illegal immigrants and
Muslims and promising early Wednesday to return “the forgotten men and
women of our country” to the symbolic and political forefront of
American life. He electrified the country’s white majority and mustered
its full strength against long-term demographic decay. [See end of this post for portrait, "The Forgotten Man."]
“A
lot of stuff he’s talking about is just God-given common sense, which I
think both parties have lost,” said Tom Kirkpatrick, 51, a Trump
supporter who used to work in an industrial laundry plant and is now on
disability. He stood near the Florida State Capitol on Tuesday, holding
an American flag. “Let’s put him in. And if he doesn’t do what he says,
I’ll help you vote him out.”
But Mr. Trump also won over millions of voters who had once flocked to President Obama’s promise of hope and change, and who on Tuesday saw in Mr. Trump their best chance to dampen the most painful blows of globalization and trade, to fight special interests, and to be heard and protected. Twelve percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters approved of Mr. Obama, according to the exit polls.
But Mr. Trump also won over millions of voters who had once flocked to President Obama’s promise of hope and change, and who on Tuesday saw in Mr. Trump their best chance to dampen the most painful blows of globalization and trade, to fight special interests, and to be heard and protected. Twelve percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters approved of Mr. Obama, according to the exit polls.
Mrs.
Clinton won by a greater margin than Mr. Obama among affluent whites,
particularly those living in the Democratic Party’s prosperous coastal
strongholds: Washington and Boston, Seattle and New York. In Manhattan,
where Mr. Trump lives and works — and where his fellow citizens mocked
and jeered him as he voted on Tuesday — Mrs. Clinton won by a record
margin, amassing 87 percent of the vote to Mr. Trump’s 10 percent.
Around the country, she won a majority of voters over all, harvesting
the country’s growing and densely packed big cities and a plurality of
the suburbs.
But
Mr. Trump won low-income white voters to the Republican ticket,
reversing a partisan divide along class lines that is as old as the
Democratic and Republican Parties — a replay of the “Brexit” vote in
June, when the old bastions of England’s Labor-left voted decisively to
leave the European Union. His breakthrough among white working-class
voters in the North not only erased the Democratic advantage but
reversed it, giving him a victory in the Electoral College while he lost
the national popular vote.
Most
strikingly, Mr. Trump won his biggest margins among middle-income white
voters, according to exit polls, a revolt not only of the white working
class but of the country’s vast white middle class. He did better than
past Republicans in the sprawling suburbs along Florida’s central
coasts, overwhelming Mrs. Clinton’s gains among Hispanic voters. He held
down Mrs. Clinton’s margins in the Philadelphia suburbs, defying
expectations that Mrs. Clinton would outperform Mr. Obama by a wide
margin.
Magnified
by the constitutional design of the Electoral College, and aided by
Republican-led efforts to dampen black and Latino voting in states like
North Carolina, Mr. Trump’s America proved the larger on Election Day.
It smashed through the Democrats’ supposed electoral “blue wall” — the
18 states carried by Democrats in every election since 1992, such as
Michigan and Pennsylvania, plus the diverse and well-educated parts of
the country that Mr. Obama attracted in his two races, like New Mexico,
Nevada, Virginia and Colorado.
Starting
Wednesday, you could walk from the Vermont border through Appalachian
coal country to the outskirts of St. Louis without crossing a county Mr.
Trump did not win decisively. You could head south through rural and
suburban Georgia all the way to South Florida, or northwest through the
Upper Midwest, or make a beeline for the West Coast, skirting only the
rising Democratic communities of Colorado and the booming multicultural
sprawl of Las Vegas before finally reaching Mrs. Clinton’s part of the
country.
“It’s
not that he was the most polished of politicians,” said Justin
Channell, 36, of Brewer, Me., who works at a health insurance company.
“I liked the message of the anti-establishment, that corruption in D.C.
is so prevalent.”
Mrs.
Clinton won the America of big, racially diverse cities and centers of
the new economy, from Silicon Valley to the Silicon Slopes of Utah,
where many traditionally Republican voters rejected Mr. Trump. But
lining up for Mr. Trump was a parallel urban America of smaller cities —
places like Scranton, Pa.; Youngstown, Ohio; and Dubuque, Iowa — that
boomed during the industrial era, and are still connected by the
arteries of the old American economy.
She
had hoped for a surge of voting by Latinos, immigrants and
African-Americans, a manifestation of the rising American electorate
long predicted by liberal strategists and feared by the Republican elite
in Washington. But exit polls suggest that Mr. Trump — despite his
attacks on immigrants, Muslims and Mexicans, and his clumsy invocation
of black neighborhoods mired in chaos and decay — did not fare worse
among the African-American and Latino voters who showed up to the polls
than Mitt Romney did four years ago.
In Miami-Dade County, where Mr. Trump had more room to lose ground among Hispanic voters than anywhere else in the country, Mrs. Clinton inched up to only 64 percent from Mr. Obama’s 62 percent of the Hispanic vote. Turnout dropped considerably in black communities across the country, from the rural South to Cleveland, Milwaukee and Detroit.
In Miami-Dade County, where Mr. Trump had more room to lose ground among Hispanic voters than anywhere else in the country, Mrs. Clinton inched up to only 64 percent from Mr. Obama’s 62 percent of the Hispanic vote. Turnout dropped considerably in black communities across the country, from the rural South to Cleveland, Milwaukee and Detroit.
By
Wednesday, the notion of a Democratic electoral map advantage bolstered
by rising Hispanic power seemed distant. Even if Mrs. Clinton had won
Florida, Mr. Trump would have powered to victory through the new
Republican heartland, in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and
Michigan, where Hispanic voters represent just a fraction of the
electorate.
Nor
was the growing Hispanic vote — and Mrs. Clinton’s strength among
well-educated voters — enough to pull her especially close in either
Arizona or Texas, the only two heavily Hispanic states that could have
plausibly joined Florida to put her over the top.
Even where Democratic-leaning Hispanics are growing as a force, Mr. Trump’s supporters were waiting on Tuesday.
Anthony
Brdar, 42, stood in front of his West Miami polling station, holding a
handmade “Vote Trump” sign, and waved a T-shirt of Mr. Obama’s face made
to look like the Joker. It called him a tyrant. An out-of-work lawyer
who lives in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood in Miami, Mr. Brdar said he
had never felt so compelled to vote.
“I
feel our country is on the verge of becoming a third world country,” he
said. “Our children are not going to have a future. We are not going to
have a future.”"
...........................
Added: Jon McNaughton painting, "The Forgotten Man:"
11/11/16, "Wow – Sean Hannity Purchases Original “The Forgotten Man” as Gift For President Elect Donald Trump," tcth, sundance…
"November 9th McNaughton announced via facebook that he sold the original to Sean Hannity:
“Sean Hannity just purchased my painting “The Forgotten Man” to give to Donald Trump to hang in the White House” (link)...
Jon McNaughton about this painting about 5 years ago:
"Against the background of a darkening sky, all of the past Presidents of the United States gather before the White House, as if to commemorate some great event. In the left hand corner of the painting sits a man. That man, with his head bowed appears distraught and hopeless as he contemplates his future. Some of the past Presidents try to console him while looking in the direction of the modern Presidents as if to say, "What have you done?" Many of these modern Presidents, seemingly oblivious to anything other than themselves, appear to be congratulating each other on their great accomplishments. In front of the man, paper trash is blowing in the wind. Crumpled dollar bills, legislative documents, and, like a whisper—the U.S. Constitution beneath the foot of Barack Obama. The Forgotten Man. Go to www.jonmcnaughton.com"
"Against the background of a darkening sky, all of the past Presidents of the United States gather before the White House, as if to commemorate some great event. In the left hand corner of the painting sits a man. That man, with his head bowed appears distraught and hopeless as he contemplates his future. Some of the past Presidents try to console him while looking in the direction of the modern Presidents as if to say, "What have you done?" Many of these modern Presidents, seemingly oblivious to anything other than themselves, appear to be congratulating each other on their great accomplishments. In front of the man, paper trash is blowing in the wind. Crumpled dollar bills, legislative documents, and, like a whisper—the U.S. Constitution beneath the foot of Barack Obama. The Forgotten Man. Go to www.jonmcnaughton.com"
..................
No comments:
Post a Comment