The Trump Problem (the real one)

[Dragline]

Be careful you do not lump "Trump supporters" in this manner, as most people who support Trump simply do so because they dislike Clinton. Her supporters are the same. See http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/21/ ... and-trump/

What I think we are really talking about is people who essentially live in the past or suffer from some version of what I like to call the "Golden Era" fallacy. P. Zimbardo's "Time Paradox" book and related research on this are highly relevant.

In the modern context, this includes virtually every kind of population you can think of that attaches an inordinate value to the speck of land they are living on or town they grew up in -- whatever keeps them rooted. This includes some of the Trump supporters, some Native Americans, some urban populations and many impoverished communities in just about any country you can think of. IMO, this is why immigrants or migrants in any society are generally more successful on average than the natives -- they don't suffer from this kind of limiting nostalgia that has them looking backwards for answers or looking for scapegoats to blame, instead of looking forward or to their own capabilities or opportunities.

[IlliniDave]

Be careful you do not lump "Trump supporters" in this manner, as most people who support Trump simply do so because they dislike Clinton. Her supporters are the same. See http://www.people-press.org/2016/09/21/ ... and-trump/

What I think we are really talking about is people who essentially live in the past or suffer from some version of what I like to call the "Golden Era" fallacy. P. Zimbardo's "Time Paradox" book and related research on this are highly relevant.

I would tend to agree, and note that both candidates have a sizeable core that exist to varying degrees in that category. It's just that the prevailing narrative bolstered by the corporate media conglomerates is that Trump's are the "deplorables" and Clinton's are the unfortunate and innocent victims of the evil enemies of Progressive-ism. Maybe what's different this time is the explicit playing of this "card" by the republican candidate at a moment the constituent audience is exceptionally primed for it.

I thought of myself in this context and I appear to have a foot in both worlds. On the one hand I've moved three times to keep my "career" up. On the other, except for a short time in the Boston area, I've stayed in each place as long as I could and further, my ER plan is to return "home" (both to my literal home town half the year, and for the other half to my figurative home in the Northwoods where part of my heart has resided since the first moment I visited it). I seem to be pretty good at turning either/ors into both/ands when it suits me. I do know that one thing that holds some people back from being itinerant career mercenaries isn't so much a patch of ground or nostalgia, it's ongoing bonds with family and friends. That was the case with my sister for whom jetting across country to pursue a better paycheck was not sustainable. Ultimately it is those bonds that are pulling me back. I suppose deep inside I've always viewed where I live for the sake of work a temporary arrangement, myself a visitor in the communities I've lived, and expected some day to return, even before it became the official plan.

Maybe it's a conflict between the nomadic and tribal facets of our past. The former kept us moving to find adequate sustenance, but the latter meant that for the majority, virtually everyone you knew moved with you, so your social structure remained intact even though geography changed. Probably hints at why immigrants tend to settle first with others of their own culture and often a goal is to be leading the way for families to follow.

[Dragline]

This study is from 2008 but I believe is still accurate (article is first link, study itself is second):

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2008/12/ ... eres-home/

http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-conten ... -29-08.pdf

What's startling about it to me is that over half of Americans have only lived in one state and about 37% never even left their hometowns. Yet, this is something we celebrate culturally and get all romantic about in any number of popular tunes and memes. It's really a terrible thing -- we should be celebrating and romanticizing people that get off their butts and "Go West" -- or at least go somewhere.

From the study on page 6, the people who have the highest incidence of staying put are (1) male; (2) white; (3) have a high school education or less; (4) are not the poorest, but have median family incomes in the $50-75K range; (5) live in the Midwest; and (6) live in rural areas. What would you guess the correlation between these metrics and current voting preferences is?

"Rural residents are the most rooted Americans. Only a third
of the people living in U.S. urban neighborhoods and
suburbs say they have spent their entire lives in the same
place. That compares with 48% of Americans living in rural
areas.

The sharpest difference between movers and stayers is in
their level of education. Americans who relocate are far
more likely to hold college degrees. Three-quarters of
college graduates (77%) have moved at least once,
compared with just over half (56%) of Americans with a
high school education or less. This likely reflects the greater
demand for college graduates in the national job market,
coupled with relatively few job opportunities for college
graduates in some hometowns, especially those in rural
areas."

[jacob]

Regardless of whether there's a correct solution (there is), the fact that professionals (people with agency, out-state college education, ...) move and the rest don't also dilutes the remaining pockets of those qualities in those communities since the movers are unlikely to ever move back in. That was a long-winded way of saying that these communities have a brain drain---but not just brains, also values and behavior.

This brain drain then results in an echo-chamber effect. Especially those left behind have little idea because unlike those who moved they have nothing to compare to other than "those elites on TV". Those who did move have a certain curse of knowledge as well. It is likely that those who moved lack the exact quality (e.g. locational loyalty) that those who stayed require to be "reached" wrt how the message is communicated.

[IlliniDave]

From the study on page 6, the people who have the highest incidence of staying put are (1) male; (2) white; (3) have a high school education or less; (4) are not the poorest, but have median family incomes in the $50-75K range; (5) live in the Midwest; and (6) live in rural areas. What would you guess the correlation between these metrics and current voting preferences is?

That is the description of a large portion of the republican core going back to Reagan at least (along with a lot of support among educated/professional voters that tend to be suburbanites and somewhat up the wealth ladder). Unless perhaps they live in Northeast Minnesota or the junction where Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin come together. I think (1), (2), and (6) are the key criteria to define a generic joe six-pack republican. My guess is these would be Trump supporters, but maybe not people that came to the red side of the table because of his message of resurrecting the past (though it could have been a differentiator in the primaries against Cruz, et. al., perhaps).

I don't know that "home" is celebrated any more than "going west" in the culture. If anything in an extroverted western culture I'd say the latter is the more celebrated. Both are strong human yearnings and many out there have a foot in both worlds. I don't see a stationary life as a terrible thing, though it does make for a terrible excuse. I would guess if I count parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, something like 80% of my family has lived the vast majority of their lives within a 50-mile radius centered in one of the bottom metros in the 300 cities rankings. I have more money than most of them, but I can't claim to have had a better life.

[Chad]

I have been suggesting the "brain drain" theory for awhile and have seen it played out in my hometown. So, while that is the reason, I'm not sure it provides a solution.

Putting those brains back would be the obvious solution. However, the only way I see that happening is an economy that doesn't require most workers to be physically located in a specific spot. This then gives the brains the choice. (The other option would be ERE, but that's not happening.)

Though, I don't think the choice makes much of a difference, as I doubt they would go back. Why would they? Who is going back to rural Pennsylvania when you could live in Tahoe, Florida Keys, Hawaii, Austin, etc.

[Dragline]

@jacob, Are we going back to Plato's cave again?

Having grown up in a city in Iowa and still being in contact with people there, this has been my experience as well. And the ones that stayed there also seem to be the ones with the worst health habits -- smoking, drinking, obesity. I'm beginning to watch some of them just drop dead now of heart failure and other lifestyle maladies. The ones that got out went to places like Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver and even Madison, Wisconsin. Or further afield in my case and a few others. And they are doing fine socioeconomically for the most part.

Meanwhile the governor of Iowa just told his constituents that one of his biggest worries is ISIS coming to Iowa. Yeah, right. Echo chamber effect indeed. Many if not most Americans confuse Iowa with Ohio and Idaho. Most people outside the US don't know of it and really don't care about anything remotely near it.

[Dragline]

I have been suggesting the "brain drain" theory for awhile and have seen it played out in my hometown. So, while that is the reason, I'm not sure it provides a solution.

Putting those brains back would be the obvious solution. However, the only way I see that happening is an economy that doesn't require most workers to be physically located in a specific spot. This then gives the brains the choice. (The other option would be ERE, but that's not happening.)

Though, I don't think the choice makes much of a difference, as I doubt they would go back. Why would they? Who is going back to rural Pennsylvania when you could live in Tahoe, Florida Keys, Hawaii, Austin, etc.

I agree that there aren't any pat solutions. We can provide them with welfare, which a lot of them are getting anyway through social security disability but that's a horrible and expensive program that just locks people into never working again. I'd rather just pay them outright or use a negative income tax if we are going to do that. I'd almost prefer to bribe people with a "moving to a more productive area" bonus. Like if you take a job in another state than pays more than your current position (or non-position), you don't have to pay taxes for a year. (Yes, you'd have to put restrictions on it so people couldn't game it by moving every year, but you get the idea.)

The problem I see is that the political incentives are all wrong. No elected official is going to campaign on the idea that people need to leave their state. Instead they always campaign on the idea that they are somehow going to create or attract jobs with legislative policies. Usually it doesn't work (see Kansas as today's failed effort), so what they actually end up doing is essentially bribing companies with tax breaks and other incentives to come to their location. We should be moving the people around with bribes, not the companies.

[Ego]

Be careful you do not lump "Trump supporters" in this manner, as most people who support Trump simply do so because they dislike Clinton.

I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that the Trump supporters who continue to stick it out do so for one thing, supreme court nominees. Those who simply hate Clinton bailed long ago when they realized the level of hatefulness between the two is staggering.

I believe the persistent Trumpers represent two overlapping camps, guns and abortion. Look around you. Who are the gun rights and anti-abortion folks? Are they young people or old? Do their philosophies represent the future or the past?

Rather than simply shove them aside, we should parse the good parts of their philosophies (yes, there are good parts) from the bad and reconstitute them into something useful. That's what autophagy does in the cell, recycling the useful material and combine it with other recyclables into something good.

Respect for life is undoubtedly good if combined with sane encouragement of birth-control and no encroachment on women's rights. Legal, safe gun ownership is good if we keep guns out of the hands of the crazy and the criminal.

Today the entrenched Trumpers want all or nothing. In the same way they refuse to move from their hometown, they refuse to budge on their policy positions. In the same way they commit self-harm by staying put in dying towns, they are willing to commit societal self-harm by electing this lunatic if they don't get what they want.

Maybe social autophagy is the solution. Remind me again, how do we induce autophagy?

[Dragline]

"Life as Autophagy" -- by Ego. Available on fine internet message forums near you.

The answer to that question would be "fasting". But I think you were asking it rhetorically.

[IlliniDave]

Many if not most Americans confuse Iowa with Ohio and Idaho.

That made me laugh and reminds me of my first cube-mate when I started work in Boston after graduating. His name was Ken. He'd been with the company a little longer and was a nice guy and would on occasion introduce me to other coworkers of an appropriate age for a new college hire to socialize with. It would go like this.

Ken: Hey everyone, this is Dave. He's from, what is it? Iowa?
Dave: No ...
Ken: Indiana?
Dave: No, it's ...
Ken: #^ck it, who cares. It's one of those states out west that starts with an "I".

[7Wannabe5]

Dragline said: In the modern context, this includes virtually every kind of population you can think of that attaches an inordinate value to the speck of land they are living on or town they grew up in -- whatever keeps them rooted. This includes some of the Trump supporters, some Native Americans, some urban populations and many impoverished communities in just about any country you can think of. IMO, this is why immigrants or migrants in any society are generally more successful on average than the natives -- they don't suffer from this kind of limiting nostalgia that has them looking backwards for answers or looking for scapegoats to blame, instead of looking forward or to their own capabilities or opportunities.

Yup. Of course, this also obviously applies to the way some people try to stick it out through bad times in their marriages or failure of faith in their religion. Like they are too stupid to understand sunk-cost fallacy or S-curves.

[jacob]

In terms of solutions, I think it's most effective to engage at the function one is currently at or those which are very close. Leave the political strategies to politicians or people who have politicians' ears. If you're a teacher or active in the PTA, get more children educated in a way that solves the problem. If you're a writer, ...

If you're a regular person with no special situation people connections, take a starfish approach. It seems common at family gatherings or visits to politely shut up (as the out of town visitor) and just silently endure the local parochial views no matter how uninformed they may be. I did that for a long time until DW said I should speak up lest some of the younger family members get completely and permanently stuck a bubble.

One doesn't have to move back. This can work while visiting. Or on facebook. Or postcards, or whatever.

I've had some success with a strategy of sowing uncertainty in the echo-chamber. The general idea is to avoid debating, but rather introduce a bit of dissonance that challenges their world-view but in a way they still find useful. For example, I'm quite familiar with the "I can't wait until I get my handgun license. I have to talk to a judge first because I got a record. But I need it so I can defend my family against terrorists"-status. This is mostly coming from the young people by the way. In such a case, rather than telling them that the odds that some terrorist is going to show up at their house in Milltown, BFE are infinitesimal I would say something like "Sounds great. Better make sure that it's a real terrorist before you shoot anyone, because unless you got a million witnesses, as soon as someone gets hit, you're probably going to be looking at a minimum of $10,000 in lawyer fees and that's just to get bail and get the process started." My goal here would be first to support the decision, but then to plant the likely previously non-existent idea that shooting at someone comes with a potential shitstorm of legal fallout even if they feel justified(*) in shooting.

(*) I've seen much liked memes justifying "self-defense" while showing pictures of street riots. I'm no legal expert, but I bet if you have a riot going on outside with people smashing up parked cars, you can't go outside and blast away and justify it as self-defense.

Similarly, "My neighborhood is crazy. When I went to [other big scary city], I brought my new gun in my bag, so if I ever come visit you guys, I'll make sure to bring it." Reply: "Oh no. Chicago shootings is almost all gang-related and the gangs keep it within the block more or less. It's not a bunch of meth heads walking into random houses around here. It's all gangs and there aren't any where we live. So please leave the gun at home. Also I think you need a special permit here. It's way more trouble than it's worth." My goal here was to plant the idea that rural gun crime and city gun crime are very different things.

That was all guns. However, it also works on politics or money. "I only make $12 an hour and nobody can live on that". Response ... "I think I calculated from my budget that I spend about $14 per day but of course we own our house." Thus planting the seed that "some people use budgets" + "some people spend very little and yet live well" + "some people actually own houses".

Another example: "I really wanted that [fancy $15000 midsized] car but they wouldn't approve me because of my credit score". Response: "Car loans are a waste a money anyway. The banks totally screw you on the interest. We bought ours in cash. Of course it's an old car, but it was only $5000 and it runs really well after we had a mechanic look it over."

First empathize a bit. Then follow up with some information that creates some uncertainty about their choices or perspective. Then shut up and allow it to germinate.

Of course, sometimes the situation is hopeless e.g. someone throws an "I hate Obama"-tantrum just repeating themselves over and over having essentially nothing else to contribute beyond a primal feeling. It's hard to connect with anything here, so don't. Instead maybe reach them indirectly by talking politics at a slightly higher level with someone else and let them overhear it. There's a lot of value in reaching the "sergeants" or the family heads/trusted perceived experts as well. Trickle-down knowledge. It might require some digging finding out who they are because likely they'll be hiding their knowledge as well, especially if they're the only one around.

Also, there's strength in numbers: Hearing the same message from two people makes it more than twice as loud.

Overall, this "soft-power" approach has been moderately effective in preparing the territory. Baby-steps. But I've seen the beginnings of actual budgets. Spending money on paying down debt instead of buying ammo or car part upgrades. Inquiries about dividends and how one gets them. Plans to save up for house down-payments.

PS: https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations ... 0143122029 has been very helpful in understanding where people are coming from.

[BRUTE]

In the same way they commit self-harm by staying put in dying towns, they are willing to commit societal self-harm by electing this lunatic if they don't get what they want.

there's always apoptosis

[Ego]

A problem has to be defined before it can be solved. I thought this was an interesting (mostly pro-Trump) take on the Trumpers perspective from an unlikely source. The presentation is annoying but his explanation of why Trump is still rising is interesting.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-t ... lks-about/

[jennypenny]

To those ignored, suffering people, Donald Trump is a brick chucked through the window of the elites. "Are you assholes listening now?"

^^This. The appeal of DJT to many is that he is the biggest brick they could find. (insert joke here)

Anyone listen to Carlin's show this week? He also pointed out that if you don't solve this problem, it won't just go away or resolve itself on its own.

[Chad]

Anyone listen to Carlin's show this week? He also pointed out that if you don't solve this problem, it won't just go away or resolve itself on its own.

This is exactly why I asked this question (I didn't listen to Carlin, yet, but I agree with him. It won't go away.). Plus, I don't see a solution. Jacob's solution is very long-term and more of a preventative measure for the next generation than a solution for the current generation.

[jennypenny]

WaPo article The Most Liberal Universities in America

If lack of education is a key component of the 'Trump Problem', then the lack of balance at top-tier universities that they show in the article is probably a contributing factor. I imagine conservative kids might shy away from attending universities where they don't feel welcome just like any other minority might.

[GandK]

Recent IQ2 debate: Blame the elites for the Trump phenomenon

I found those arguing against the motion to be offensive (elitist) to the point of being part of the problem they were debating about. And utterly unaware of it.

[Chad]

More of the problem:

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/ne ... s-torches/

I'm not sure he even understands what he is suggesting.