The Geography of Trumpism

NY Times ^ | March 12, 2016 | NEIL IRWIN and JOSH KATZ

[Steelfish]

The Geography of Trumpism NEIL IRWIN and JOSH KATZ MARCH 12, 2016

When the Census Bureau asks Americans about their ancestors, some respondents don’t give a standard answer like “English” or “German.” Instead, they simply answer “American.”

The places with high concentrations of these self-described Americans turn out to be the places Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has performed the strongest.

This connection and others emerged in an analysis of the geography of Trumpism. To see what conditions prime a place to support Mr. Trump for the presidency, we compared hundreds of demographic and economic variables from census data, along with results from past elections, with this year’s results in the 23 states that have held primaries and caucuses. We examined what factors predict a high level of Trump support relative to the total number of registered voters.

The analysis shows that Trump counties are places where white identity mixes with long-simmering economic dysfunctions.

The places where Trump has done well cut across many of the usual fault lines of American politics — North and South, liberal and conservative, rural and suburban.

What they have in common is that they have largely missed the generation-long transition of the United States away from manufacturing and into a diverse, information-driven economy deeply intertwined with the rest of the world.

“It’s a nonurban, blue-collar and now apparently quite angry population,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “They’re not people who have moved around a lot, and things have been changing away from them, but they live in areas that feel stagnant in a lot of ways.”

SEE GRAPH The 10 Variables Most Closely Linked to a County’s Support for Donald Trump A correlation of 1 means the variable is a perfect indicator of Trump support.* Negative correlations are shown in red.

[goldstategop]

In other words, the poorly educated and often mocked low info voters.

A generation ago, people would call them blue collar stiffs.

My father, who never finished grade school, was that kind of guy.

[Bobalu]

[Steelfish]

Puerile! Address the “substance” of the article.

[Robert DeLong]

So it is abundantly clear that you do not consider yourself to be American. Now I understand. Thanks for clearing that up for us.

[Gay State Conservative]

Gee..."Americans" are most likely to support Trump.So the Africans...Irish...Germans....Mexicans...Italians,etc are supporting The Former twelfth Lady?

I say "outstanding"! If you insist on being seen as African...or Irish...or whatever then you need to *be* in Africa,or Ireland,or where ever.As Teddy Roosevelt once said there's no room in this country for hyphenated Americans.

[patq]

From a statistical standpoint, those correlations are so low, both the positive and negative, that they are meaningless. They could have done a correlation with car color and Trump supporter and hit the same “correlation” levels.

[Gay State Conservative]

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all … The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic … There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

Theodore Roosevelt,October 1915

[RegulatorCountry]

People whose ancestors have been here for many generations don’t have a single ancestral nation with which to identify. Me, I have an English surname, but ancestry from: England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, and several native tribes. The only answer to give to such a question is “American.” There is no other country to which I can turn, for identity or anything else.

[x]

Pretty snide.

There are some good rejoinders in the article's comments, though.

[goldstategop]

Don ya wanna know who’s really supporting Trump?

Nazis and white racists! Cue the George Wallace meme.

No one supports a Nazi and a white racist, you know.

If you’re a Leftist, you know Trump is addressing his supporters in code.

Every one knows what he really means.

[exDemMom]

When the Census Bureau asks Americans about their ancestors, some respondents don’t give a standard answer like “English” or “German.” Instead, they simply answer “American.”

Well, when some of our ancestors were Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers, and our ancestry contains a mix of ethnic groups from every continent--"American" is a pretty good description.

[RegulatorCountry]

Same situation here, but my earliest were Jamestown, VA. Beat you by two decades, lol.

[goldstategop]

Now we have Southerners voting for a “New York” values Yankee.

[exDemMom]

From a statistical standpoint, those correlations are so low, both the positive and negative, that they are meaningless. They could have done a correlation with car color and Trump supporter and hit the same “correlation” levels.

Here you go: a collection of correlations, mathematically strong but substantively meaningless. Although I'm sure I could think of a way to tie together Nicholas Cage movies and drownings...

[Steelfish]

Can you explain you logic that escapes us all? At least the others offered a thoughtful appraisal of the news story.

[Williams]

Imagine the disgraceful attitudes they will get from Hilary/ Bernie supporters?

And do you think Hillary’s inner city support has not been bypassed by the wonderful modern society?

Won’t be finding many Muslims who just identify as American.

[Don Corleone]

When given the box to check I always check “Native American” which I am, my parents were, my grandparents were and my great grandparents were too I think. So dammit, I am one too!

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

This article is crowing about the victory of cosmopolitanism and the dominance of anti-Americanism, the collapse of our economy, the destruction of our morals, the ruination of our political institutions and the scattering our once united demographic into ineffective little units leaderless and unorganized.

[Windflier]

Same story for my family. Some of my ancestors were here since time immemorial, some came from the British Isles before the Revolution, and some came here from Africa in chains.

I don’t know what else to call myself, but American.