Reviewing “The Great Revolt” in the Context of Five Countrywide Types

 

Salena Zito and Brad Todd’s new book The Great Revolt is a great read, based on extensive interviews with Trump voters as well as a Great Revolt survey. It’s important to note, though, that in the survey and later for the book, there are only interviews with Trump supporters from a specific geographical region: Trump supporters hailing from the five “Rust Belt” states of Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania; and even more specifically, from ten electorally-significant counties within these states.

Zito and Todd’s focus on Trump voters from behind the “Blue Wall” of rust-belt counties, which had been stubbornly blue before Trump, ought to be treasured for what it is: neither a description of American Trump voters in general, nor the final word on America’s new populist-conservative coalition, but a testament to the power of geography in our electoral process, and to the strategic importance of not overlooking those who might otherwise go overlooked.

In The Great Revolt, Zito and Todd identify “seven clusters of voters integral to [Trump’s] winning coalition.” These clusters are not meant to describe all types of Trump voters, or even the bulk of Trump voters; instead, they’re meant to describe crucial Trump voters: voters Zito and Todd believe were vital to Trump’s storming of the “Blue Wall” to achieve electoral victory. While Zito and Todd also argue that these seven types of voters serve as bellwethers for a more general populist-conservative realignment, it would be a mistake to lose sight of the fact that the “great” in The Great Revolt refers not to our country as a whole, but to the power of people in places which have lately been overlooked to make a great difference in our politics.

***

Zito and Todd favorably cite a countrywide survey of American Trump voters, The Five Types of Trump Voters by Emily Ekins, and it’s an interesting exercise (one partially, but not completely, carried out by Zito and Todd themselves throughout their book) to see how Zito and Todd’s seven types of crucial Trump voter fit into the five types of Trump voter Ekins identifies countrywide.

Ekins used a statistical technique called latent class analysis to look for the existence of unique clusters of Trump voters [countrywide]. The results indicate that far from there being only one type of Trump voter, there were five unique clusters of them: The Staunch Conservatives (31 percent), Free Marketeers (25 percent), the American Preservationists (20 percent), Anti-Elites (19 percent), and the Disengaged (5 percent).

Zito and Todd use a combination of GRS (Great Revolt Survey) data and reporter intuition (garnered from more than 300 interviews) to identify their seven crucial types of Trump voters within the five swing states the GRS covered: “Red-Blooded and Blue-Collared”, “Perot-istas”, “Rough Rebounders”, “Girl Gun Power”, “Rotary Reliables”, “King Cyrus Christians”, and “Silent Suburban Moms”.

***

Of these seven types, Rotary Reliables, King Cyrus Christians, and Girl Gun Power seem to fit fairly well into Ekins’ countrywide category of “Staunch Conservatives.” Rotary Reliables are well-educated, successful conservatives who live outside major metropolitan areas, King Cyrus Christians are conservative Christians who, even if they find Trump personally distasteful, transactionally support Trump because they believe Trump will defend religious liberty effectively, and the “Gun Power” girls are younger women (generally under 45) staunchly committed to the Second Amendment out of a sense of both personal empowerment and responsibility. While Gun Power girls needn’t be staunch conservatives in every respect, their commitment to personal, family, and national self-defense seems to leave them pretty comfortably within the conservative coalition.

***

Perot-istas and Rough Rebounders both appear to overlap with Ekins’ “Anti-Elites” and “Disengaged” types. Great Revolt survey results characterize Perot-istas as:

those older than thirty who registered for the first time in 2016, or those eligible to vote but not voting in 2008 and 2012, or those with no history of primary participation. This group comprised 6 percent of the Trump coalition in the states surveyed, according to the survey returns; and they were, as expected, significantly less conservative, less ideological, and less religious than the rest of the Trump pool. [51]*

Rough Rebounders are better characterized narratively than by a survey. They are Americans “uniquely attracted to Trump, regardless of their politics” because they “had experienced a setback in life and saw the same kind of vulnerability and recovery in Trump as they had experienced.” [74] In short, they’re the voters drawn to Trump’s narrative because it so strongly resonates with their own.

Although it’s difficult to capture a narrative in a survey, GRS results estimate that Rough Rebounders are the most secular of Trump voters (beating even Perot-istas), almost indifferent to identifying as conservative (the odds they’ll do so are roughly 50-50), and are the most likely (at 85%) to say “corporations do not care if their decisions hurt working people.” Rough Rebounders may be more politically engaged than the Perot-istas, though — in fact, fully 30% of Rough Rebounders voted for Obama!

Ekins’ “Anti-Elites” aren’t characterized by the same fierce narrative attachment Rough Rebounders have toward Trump. In fact, Anti-Elites, “along with the Free Marketeers, are the weakest supporters of Trump with only 26 percent having very favorable views.” Nonetheless, Anti-Elites are similar to Rough Rebounders in other respects. They are the least religious of Ekins’ types, they harbor a “staunch distrust of elites and a perception that the system is rigged against them”, and they are

the least loyal Republicans of the Trump voters with nearly two-thirds (63 percent) who say they vote both for Democrats and Republicans in elections, a quarter who say they voted for Barack Obama in 2012, and nearly as many who say they identify as independent (42 percent) as Republican (47 percent).

Despite being classified as separate archetypes in The Great Revolt, Perot-istas and Rough Rebounders have enough in common it’s hard to say where one archetype leaves off and the other begins. Ekins’ Anti-Elites and Disengaged seem similarly close, making for a four-way overlap.

The Disengaged are the least politically opinionated of Ekins’ types, with “majorities say[ing] they ‘don’t know’ if they support increasing free trade, if strong government or the free market best solves economic problems, if they believe human activity is causing climate change, or if we should raise taxes on higher income people.” Like the Anti-Elites, the Disengaged tend to “think the political and economic systems are rigged”. Like the Rough Rebounders, the Disengaged also trust that “Trump is the man who can make deals to fix” them.

***

No category of voters identified in The Great Revolt fits neatly into the 20% of US Trump voters Ekins classifies as the “American Preservationists” who “constitute[d] Trump’s core constituency”, especially during the primaries, although Zito and Todd’s “Red-Blooded and Blue-Collared” archetype might come the closest. Zito and Todd use GSR results to characterize the

Red-blooded and Blue-Collared archetype as a Trump voter who had worked a blue-collar, hourly wage, or physical-labor job after the age of 21, and had experienced a job loss in the last seven years either personally or in their immediate families [20]

American Preservationists have led similarly hardscrabble lives, being

less likely to have graduated from college—only 15 percent have done so. Instead, 61 percent have high school diplomas or less (20 percent say they did not finish high school). They are half as likely as other groups to be employed full time and are the most likely group to be underemployed (35 percent) with 19 percent reporting being unable to work due to a disability. They are also lower income and the most likely group to have incomes below $50,000 a year (56 percent).

Moreover, American Preservationists are

more likely than others to self-identify as a “born again” Christian (45 percent), and most likely to say that religion is “very important” to them (58 percent). But surprisingly, they are also the most likely group to “never” or “seldom” attend church (52 percent). Religion appears to be more a part of their identity rather than their daily life.

Heritage and a sense of identity both matter greatly to the Red-Blooded and Blue-Collar archetype as well as to American Preservationists, but the Red-Blooded and Blue-Collar voters interviewed in The Great Revolt describe an identity shaped by occupation (farming, mining, union work), location (growing up in small-town, blue-collar America), and personal optimism rather than by race, religion, and pessimism. By contrast, among American Preservationists, “Fully 67 percent say that their race is extremely or very important to their identity”, angst over anti-white discrimination is common, and 73 percent report “their fate was linked with their racial group.”

Zito and Todd emphasize that race simply wasn’t a factor for the vast majority of the more-than-300 Trump voters they interviewed. While “naked nationalism was an admitted feature of Trump’s campaign message”, [231] the nationalism Zito and Todd describe as appealing to the voters they interviewed is of the pragmatic variety, not the “nativist and ethnocultural conception of American identity” favored by American Preservationists.

***

This brings us to the two types of Trump voter not described yet, Zito and Todd’s “Silent Suburban Moms” and Ekins’ “Free Marketeers”.

Silent Suburban Moms are most noticeable for what they’re not: they’re the suburban moms Hillary tried to win over, but didn’t. As Zito and Todd put it,

Clinton’s strategy worked to a point, but not nearly well enough to secure her the presidency. While Trump’s margin among college-educated white women was below the Republican norm, those defections were not enough to deny him the electoral votes of every swing state in the Great Lakes region, plus Florida and North Carolina. Because she and her campaign team bet their entire strategy on this group and failed to get the margin they needed, the Silent Suburban Mom is an important archetype in the Trump coalition. [204-205]

Likewise, Free Marketeers are noticeable for what they’re not: they’re not one of the seven archetypes described in The Great Revolt, despite making up 25% of Trump voters in the country as a whole.

Free Marketeers shouldn’t feel slighted by this. Zito and Todd focus exclusively on voter archetypes crucial for Trump’s win in five rust-belt swing states, and Free Marketeers simply aren’t one of those archetypes.

While the Republican party could run into trouble if enough suburban moms and Free Marketeers defect, The Great Revolt highlights that not enough of either defected to prevent Trump’s victory the first time around, suggesting that losing some votes from these demographics could be a reasonable price to pay to forge the new populist-conservative coalition Zito and Todd posit as the Republican Party’s future, a coalition animated by “Trump’s red-hot pragmatism” if “Trump has remade, or can remake, the Republican Party on a less-ideological but more-strident forge”. [245]

***

Ekins notes that her five groupings of Trump voters

receive further support from the fact that the Pew Research Center’s 2014 Political Typology found similar groups of people. The Free Marketeers resemble Pew’s Business Conservatives, Staunch Conservatives resemble Pew’s Steadfast Conservatives, and the American Preservationists and Anti-Elites have similarities with Pew’s Hard-Pressed Skeptics.

Pew regularly updates its political typology, which means it has changed some since 2014. Even so, considerable continuity remains across the updates. (Though, if you’re like me, where you fall in Pew’s typology depends on how cynical you’re feeling when you take Pew’s quiz.)

Pew’s typology is meant to apply to all Americans, no matter how they vote. Ekins’ typology is meant to apply to all Trump voters, irrespective of where they live. The Great Revolt, by contrast, presents information from a narrow slice of the electorate — data gathered from Trump voters in five states, and even more specifically, interviews conducted in just ten counties.

Nonetheless, it’s clear Zito and Todd believe this slice is emblematic of a realignment affecting the country as a whole. This realignment is populist in spirit, but it’s not about the popular vote. Instead, it’s centered, as good US presidential campaign strategy ought to be, on electoral-college math. The seven archetypes present in “The Great Revolt” are important for who and where they are, an aspect of our electoral politics not as readily addressed by either Pew’s or Ekin’s typology of voters.

***

The Great Revolt is not a complete account of America’s Trump voters by itself, which is why dry demographic comparisons with other, countrywide studies are helpful to put The Great Revolt in context. It is, however, a useful corrective to various stereotypes surrounding many Trump voters; moreover, it adds a particularly useful kind of insight to the wider pool of information available on Trump voters: insight focused squarely on electoral-college results.

Finally — and most hearteningly, I suspect, for many fans — The Great Revolt gives these electorally-important Trump voters a chance to have their support for Trump documented in their own words. Critics of The Great Revolt note that Zito doesn’t interview Trump voters critically or skeptically, but instead takes them at their word. That’s not a bug of her interviews, though, but a feature: Let other reporters second-guess, if they like. The Great Revolt offers the wider world an opportunity to simply listen to what these pivotal voters have to say.

________________________________

* page numbers taken from the hardcover Crown Forum first edition

Published in Elections, General
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  1. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Thanks much for this, MFR.  Very interesting analyses and comparison of them.

    The term “America’s new populist-conservative coalition” struck me.  I guess we are official now.  We have a name.

    • #1
  2. toggle Inactive
    toggle
    @toggle

    Would add another category : the Cigar Shop Aficionado.

    The first Full Monty Trumpster I encountered (during primaries season) was a Cuban, whose enthusiasm was contagious (he owned a business that developed products for the detoxification of water sources used by livestock). He was known to educate us on how government red-tape interfered with business.

    Interestingly, deregulation was one of the first notches in the winner’s belt.

    Now, the fun conversion begins when a lawyer walks in with the assumption of total approval he can say right off the bat that Trump is an idiot.

    We are respectful enough to know the shop owner has to welcome all customers, so we go easy at first.

    It doesn’t take long though for him to recognize who in this environment is the alien.

    This may not be a large demographic, but it is a potent one.

    • #2
  3. Matt Balzer Member
    Matt Balzer
    @MattBalzer

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: the Disengaged (5 percent).

    I have to admit I would have thought the Disengaged would be a higher percentage, although perhaps the definition used is different then the way I would think of it.

    • #3
  4. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    toggle (View Comment):

    The first Full Monty Trumpster I encountered (during primaries season) was a Cuban, whose enthusiasm was contagious (he owned a business that developed products for the detoxification of water sources used by livestock). He was known to educate us on how government red-tape interfered with business.

    The first one I encountered during the primaries was also a business owner, a good friend of mine. We have dinner all the time, and she was totally on the Trump Train from day 1. I thought she’d lost her mind at the time. He wasn’t my guy at all, and I thought the whole thing was a PR stunt. But when he actually won the nomination, I was 100% on board and still am.

    • #4
  5. dnewlander Inactive
    dnewlander
    @dnewlander

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    toggle (View Comment):

    The first Full Monty Trumpster I encountered (during primaries season) was a Cuban, whose enthusiasm was contagious (he owned a business that developed products for the detoxification of water sources used by livestock). He was known to educate us on how government red-tape interfered with business.

    The first one I encountered during the primaries was also a business owner, a good friend of mine. We have dinner all the time, and she was totally on the Trump Train from day 1. I thought she’d lost her mind at the time. He wasn’t my guy at all, and I thought the whole thing was a PR stunt. But when he actually won the nomination, I was 100% on board and still am.

    Until the first Republican candidate debate, I thought the same thing. That night I was in Spokane and I spent the whole night texting a fairly liberal friend of mine (I’m trying to make him see the error of his ways), and the gist was, “Trump’s serious. He actually wants to be President.”

    I still wasn’t completely sold in November, 2016. I went into the voting booth convinced I was going to write in someone else, but after a moment’s reflection, I voted for Trump. And I’ve been not only pleasantly surprised, but vehemently so, ever since. Warts and all, I truly believe he wants the best for America in every way, and he acts like it.

    I never felt that way for a minute under 0.

    • #5
  6. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    dnewlander (View Comment):
    “Trump’s serious. He actually wants to be President.”

    It still surprises when someone says something like, “Trump only did it as a publicity stunt.  He didn’t know he was going to win.”

    My response is, “If it was only a stunt, why didn’t he drop out when he knew he was going to win the nomination?”

    • #6
  7. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    This is a very interesting overview of what sounds like an interesting book. I’m glad that the Trump voter is treated with respect.

    Per the groups laid out, I am probably most attuned to the “suburban mom,” though I no longer live in suburbia. What you say is observed about this group’s importance is interesting.

    I have definitely seen a decline in support for the Republican Party amongst this group in an anecdotal sense–and empirically if looking at some key counties–for many reasons related to President Trump, which should be very concerning for elections beneath the presidency.

    That said, as long as the Supreme Court is viewed as having so much power, I think many in this group would still pull the lever for Trump in 2020 per what seem to be their ever-more-progressive alternatives, even if they’ve viewed his administration as a very mixed bag.

     

    • #7
  8. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    Midget, thanks for the review. Very interesting and informative.

    • #8
  9. Marythefifth Inactive
    Marythefifth
    @Marythefifth

    Yes, it’s good to hear from the voters in those states. Did they interview only individuals who had always before voted Democrat? And did those voters choose Trump in the primary as well as the final? Did the King Cyrus Christians’ vote for Trump over other Republicans in the primary? Of course they’d vote for Trump in the general. Maybe the book covers this, but so much of the analysis of the election appears to overlook the fact that in many states, party affiliation doesn’t limit you from voting in the other party’s primary. Party membership registration is not really a ‘thing’ in many states. And if they voted in the R primary, how many choices did they have? Just to say a person voted for Trump in the general doesn’t say enough.

    • #9
  10. Eric Cook, aka St. Salieri Inactive
    Eric Cook, aka St. Salieri
    @EricCook

    An excellent article and two interesting works to spend some time reflecting on…one thing that strikes me just from the OP is the way many of these categories likely overlap in subtle ways and some other things that may unite them in ways not explored in this excellent précis.

    Well done, and thank you.

    • #10
  11. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Marythefifth (View Comment):

     … Did they interview only individuals who had always before voted Democrat? And did those voters choose Trump in the primary as well as the final? Did the King Cyrus Christians’ vote for Trump over other Republicans in the primary? Of course they’d vote for Trump in the general.

    ….

    For me, this post was very interesting, and what strikes me is Man’s need to impose order on chaos. We have a primal need to attempt this, but 2016 defies analysis in my opinion. I mean I, for instance, not only don’t fit exactly into any of the categories, but also hate it when people try to categorize me (as most of us do probably). 

    I think the whole thing just boils down to everybody on both sides being disgusted with their Establishment party. Trump is our thumb in their eye.

    • #11
  12. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Marythefifth (View Comment):

    Yes, it’s good to hear from the voters in those states. Did they interview only individuals who had always before voted Democrat? And did those voters choose Trump in the primary as well as the final? Did the King Cyrus Christians’ vote for Trump over other Republicans in the primary? Of course they’d vote for Trump in the general. Maybe the book covers this, but so much of the analysis of the election appears to overlook the fact that in many states, party affiliation doesn’t limit you from voting in the other party’s primary. Party membership registration is not really a ‘thing’ in many states. And if they voted in the R primary, how many choices did they have? Just to say a person voted for Trump in the general doesn’t say enough.

    They disproportionately, but not exclusively, published interviews from former Democrats and independents.

    Most Staunch Conservatives, including King Cyrus Christians, did not vote Trump in the primary, I believe. Instead, Ekins reports that American Preservationists, a demographic whose distinguishing sentiments were not emphasized by “The Great Revolt”, were Trump’s core constituency in the primaries. 

    Rough Rebounders, who were personally drawn to Trump’s story because it resonated with their own, may have also favored Trump early on. But many interviews published in “The Great Revolt” report gradually or even reluctantly coming to support Trump in time for the general election. This seems especially true of the archetypes classifiable as “Staunch Conservatives” as well as the Silent Suburban Moms.

    • #12
  13. Rōnin Coolidge
    Rōnin
    @Ronin

    dnewlander (View Comment):

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    toggle (View Comment):

    The first Full Monty Trumpster I encountered (during primaries season) was a Cuban, whose enthusiasm was contagious (he owned a business that developed products for the detoxification of water sources used by livestock). He was known to educate us on how government red-tape interfered with business.

    The first one I encountered during the primaries was also a business owner, a good friend of mine. We have dinner all the time, and she was totally on the Trump Train from day 1. I thought she’d lost her mind at the time. He wasn’t my guy at all, and I thought the whole thing was a PR stunt. But when he actually won the nomination, I was 100% on board and still am.

    Until the first Republican candidate debate, I thought the same thing. That night I was in Spokane and I spent the whole night texting a fairly liberal friend of mine (I’m trying to make him see the error of his ways), and the gist was, “Trump’s serious. He actually wants to be President.”

    I still wasn’t completely sold in November, 2016. I went into the voting booth convinced I was going to write in someone else, but after a moment’s reflection, I voted for Trump. And I’ve been not only pleasantly surprised, but vehemently so, ever since. Warts and all, I truly believe he wants the best for America in every way, and he acts like it.

    I never felt that way for a minute under 0.

    My first Trumpster I ran across was my wife.  We have been married for 43 years and in all that time she had never shown any kind of interest in politics and She rarely would vote.  At the beginning of 2016 she asked me who I favored at the time, and I said Ted Cruz.  When Ted dropped out, she came back and asked me again, and I said I didn’t know.  Ms. Ronin then spoke right up and said, ” well I’m for The Donald, I like the way he talks.”  When I asked what brought this on, she said (and I quote) “That SOB Obama and W have [redacted] us all, we’ve got to get someone in there to help get us out of this mess.”  Yes, Ms. Ronin is a little rough around the edges, but you have to pull your hat down low if you want to ride in this rodeo.

    • #13
  14. TheSockMonkey Inactive
    TheSockMonkey
    @TheSockMonkey

    My father wasn’t the first pro-Trumper I ran across, but he may have been the one that surprised me the most. I guess it shouldn’t have though, as he is definitely the sort that’s given up on the dreaded “Establishment.” If memory serves, he checked out on the Republicans (at least in presidential politics) at about 2004. He worked with the Constitution Party, and then supported Ron Paul in 2012.

    He and I are both a mix of Staunch Conservative, King Cyrus Christian, and Red-blooded/Blue-collared; with some Guy Gun Power in my case.

    And Dad was right, of course.

    • #14
  15. AltarGirl Inactive
    AltarGirl
    @CM

    Matt Balzer (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: the Disengaged (5 percent).

    I have to admit I would have thought the Disengaged would be a higher percentage, although perhaps the definition used is different then the way I would think of it.

    The funny thing about people is that they can be uninformed and still hold strong opinions.

    The disengaged were collected together for their notorious lukewarm feelings. That some issues are the most important isn’t noteworthy, as it’s different from person to person and their idea of most important is decidedly less strident than the uninformed in (I think) the preservationist category. A preservationist would rate the most important issue a 20 on a scale of 1-10 and a disengaged’s most important issue might be a 6.

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: While “naked nationalism was an admitted feature of Trump’s campaign message”, [231] the nationalism Zito and Todd describe as appealing to the voters they interviewed is of the pragmatic variety, not the “nativist and ethnocultural conception of American identity” favored by American Preservationists.

    It’s about time someone pointed this out.

    • #15
  16. AltarGirl Inactive
    AltarGirl
    @CM

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    Marythefifth (View Comment):

    … Did they interview only individuals who had always before voted Democrat? And did those voters choose Trump in the primary as well as the final? Did the King Cyrus Christians’ vote for Trump over other Republicans in the primary? Of course they’d vote for Trump in the general.

    ….

    For me, this post was very interesting, and what strikes me is Man’s need to impose order on chaos. We have a primal need to attempt this, but 2016 defies analysis in my opinion. I mean I, for instance, not only don’t fit exactly into any of the categories, but also hate it when people try to categorize me (as most of us do probably).

    I think the whole thing just boils down to everybody on both sides being disgusted with their Establishment party. Trump is our thumb in their eye.

    Interesting. I don’t mind being grouped and labeled. I mind the assumption that the label tells all you need to know about me.

    • #16
  17. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    TheSockMonkey (View Comment):
    I guess it shouldn’t have though, as he is definitely the sort that’s given up on the dreaded “Establishment.”

    On political typology quizzes, if I’m in a good mood I’ll be typed as something representing the overlapping demographics of free-market and traditional Christian. But I also type pretty anti-establishment, and anti-establishment will win out in the classification if I’m feeling cynical enough.

    One of my biggest fears of Trump has been that he’d end up being quite Establishment while sounding anti-establishment enough to give himself cover.

    To be honest, this fear isn’t wholly assuaged — if a politician could find a way to profit from being an “establishment tool” while still firing up his base, why wouldn’t he? Even fervent ideologues have a reputation for risking turning into “swamp creatures” if they hang around long enough, so can a pragmatist like Trump, no matter how populist in tone, really avoid the same risk? Time will tell…

    I do sometimes get a kick out of my having an anti-establishment cynicism running deep enough it sometimes gets mistaken for establishmentarianism, though.

    • #17
  18. toggle Inactive
    toggle
    @toggle

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    if a politician could find a way to profit from being an “establishment tool” while still firing up his base, why wouldn’t he? Even fervent ideologues have a reputation for risking turning into “swamp creatures” if they hang around long enough, so can a pragmatist like Trump, no matter how populist in tone, really avoid the same risk?

    He has no incentive for that.

    He has built castles in the midst of swamps. But he lives in the castle (don’t take this to be eulogistic, it’s a metaphor).

    It’s the bottom-feeders that dwell in the swamp. e.g. Harry Reid, etc.

    Even if he has only selectively released his tax filings, he still donates all of his tax-payer salary.

    • #18
  19. AltarGirl Inactive
    AltarGirl
    @CM

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    To be honest, this fear isn’t wholly assuaged — if a politician could find a way to profit from being an “establishment tool” while still firing up his base, why wouldn’t he? Even fervent ideologues have a reputation for risking turning into “swamp creatures” if they hang around long enough, so can a pragmatist like Trump, no matter how populist in tone, really avoid the same risk? Time will tell…

    Hmmm… I can see what your saying. So if he fails to accomplish his more populist platforms, he can say he was stymied by GOPe, but really he didn’t really try… like Marco Rubio…

    • #19
  20. Hypatia Member
    Hypatia
    @

    Five kinds of Trump  voters:

    1. Intelligent

    2. Perspicacious

    3. Pragmatic

    4. Independent-minded

    5. (Oh, yeah! Patriotic

    this crap.makes me sick! We voted our party, except for those of us who were too intellectually  etiolated to do it. Thank God!!

    we do not need to be psychoanalyzed now, with so many victories to our credit! as if we were members of some failed Doomsday cult.

    Promises made, promises kept..what part of that dont you understand?

    • #20
  21. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Hypatia (View Comment):

    this crap.makes me sick!…

    we do not need to be psychoanalyzed now, with so many victories to our credit! as if we were members of some failed Doomsday cult.

    How does a favorable review of a book by a team of writers known for championing Trump supporters count as crap psychoanalyzing the supporters as if they were some failed Doomsday cult?

    It’s possible people interested in winning — specifically winning elections with the electoral system we have — might find Zito and Todd’s analysis really useful, especially when their analysis is not mistaken for an analysis of the popular vote for Trump (as some reviews seem to have done), but is honored for what it is: an analysis respecting the regional distribution of power in the electoral college.

    • #21
  22. Hypatia Member
    Hypatia
    @

    Moderator Note:

    Racist and rude

    [redacted]

    • #22
  23. Jager Coolidge
    Jager
    @Jager

    Hypatia (View Comment):

    Five kinds of Trump voters:

    1. Intelligent

    2. Perspicacious

    3. Pragmatic

    4. Independent-minded

    5. (Oh, yeah! Patriotic

    this crap.makes me sick! We voted our party, except for those of us who were too intellectually etiolated to do it. Thank God!!

    we do not need to be psychoanalyzed now, with so many victories to our credit! as if we were members of some failed Doomsday cult.

    Promises made, promises kept..what part of that dont you understand?

    Look while I like your 5 types of Trump voters, I think this book is kinda useful. Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio and Penn. are the type of swing states that Republicans need to win. Any insight,  especially from interviewing the voters themselves, that helps us speak to these voters and keep them on the R side of the elections is a good thing. 

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