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How the G.O.P. Elite Lost Its Voters to Donald Trump
NY Times ^ | March 28, 2016 | NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Posted on 03/28/2016 6:45:25 PM PDT by Innovative

As the Republican Party collapses on itself, conservative leaders struggling to explain Mr. Trump’s appeal have largely seized on his unique qualities as a candidate: his larger-than-life persona, his ability to dominate the airwaves, his tough-sounding if unrealistic policy proposals. Others ascribe Mr. Trump’s rise to the xenophobia and racism of Americans angry over their declining power.

But the story is also one of a party elite that abandoned its most faithful voters, blue-collar white Americans, who faced economic pain and uncertainty over the past decade as the party’s donors, lawmakers and lobbyists prospered. From mobile home parks in Florida and factory towns in Michigan, to Virginia’s coal country, where as many as one in five adults live on Social Security disability payments, disenchanted Republican voters lost faith in the agenda of their party’s leaders.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: New York
KEYWORDS: 2016election; 2016gopprimary; 2016issues; election2016; gope; gopeantitrump; newyork; trump; trumpvoters
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" disenchanted Republican voters lost faith in the agenda of their party’s leaders."

I think this sums it up. And the GOPe is still not done yet in trying to prevent Trump from being the Republican nominee.

1 posted on 03/28/2016 6:45:26 PM PDT by Innovative
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To: Innovative

When they stopped disagreeing with the Democrats and teamed up to form the Uniparty to screw America, was time to show the GOPe the exit.

Primary Paul Ryan.

Elect Trump and downsize the government by 20%. For starters.


2 posted on 03/28/2016 6:46:29 PM PDT by TigerClaws
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To: Innovative

GOPe is in bed with the Democrats for a Hillary presidency.

See:

Tech billionaires (major Dem donors) plot with GOP leaders at exclusive island resort to stop Trump

http://nypost.com/2016/03/08/tech-billionaires-plot-with-gop-leaders-to-stop-trump-at-exclusive-island-resort/


3 posted on 03/28/2016 6:46:36 PM PDT by Innovative ("Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." -- Vince Lombardi)
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To: TigerClaws

>> Primary Paul Ryan.

Definitely.


4 posted on 03/28/2016 6:47:01 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Innovative

A lot of these White working class voters used to vote Democratic (probably most of ‘em). Of course, the NYT ignores that tidbid.


5 posted on 03/28/2016 6:48:24 PM PDT by rbg81 (Truth is stranger than fiction)
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To: Gene Eric
>> Primary Paul Ryan.

Definitely.

Most, most definitely!

.

6 posted on 03/28/2016 6:52:29 PM PDT by Seaplaner (Never give in. Never give in. Never...except for convictions of honour and good sense. W. Churchill)
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To: Innovative

All I know is I got tired of Republicans talking like conservatives then acting like moderates. Or worse. I have no idea how a political party can be so strong at the state level and so completely ineffective at the national level. But the GOP has certainly managed it.


7 posted on 03/28/2016 6:58:59 PM PDT by ameribbean expat
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To: Innovative

I don’t think this article gets it 100% right. At times they nibble on large pieces of the truth, such as the voters feel abandoned and the have been taken for granted, and at other times they basically say Republican voters are just Democrats light who should have been given Democrat things. They seem to imply Republican voters really WANT Obamacare.

No where do I really see the stating part of the problem is that the Republicans keep promising really important conservative things to their base and then pulling it away, like Lucy and the Charlie Brown football. This has enraged the Tea party base. They instead say that the party is promising and giving us conservative things we don’t want when it should be giving us Democrat things, like “wage subsidies” and “targeted infrastructure spending”.

It does hit it with these paragraphs -

“They saw illegal immigration not only as a cultural and security threat, but also as an economic one, intertwined with trade deals that had stripped away good manufacturing jobs while immigrants competed for whatever work remained.”

“In 2013 in western New York, one of the last remaining American manufacturers of dinnerware went out of business, adding 110 lost jobs to the Rust Belt toll. Representative Chris Collins, a Republican from the Buffalo area, had been the plant’s majority owner until the previous year, when voters elected him to Congress. His former firm had been undercut by Chinese imports that were a third cheaper, Mr. Collins argued, propped up by Chinese currency manipulation.”

“I’ve seen what happens when a country is allowed to undersell the U.S.,” said Mr. Collins, who was the first member of Congress to endorse Mr. Trump. “Those jobs were stolen. And the politicians let it happen.”


8 posted on 03/28/2016 7:03:46 PM PDT by I still care
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To: Innovative

This is the Trump = Bernie meme.

A lot of leftist types explain, and even like, Trump because of this.

Posters here (newer Trump sign-ons) have even stated Trump and Sanders want basically the same thing.

The leftists like the economic and class warfare that is implied.


9 posted on 03/28/2016 7:07:11 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: Innovative

Regardless of the specifics, the following statement is 100% true: “disenchanted Republican voters lost faith in the agenda of their party’s leaders.”

And those so-called “leaders”, rather than looking in the mirror to find the problem, are wailing about Trump. But Trump is the symptom, not the disease.


10 posted on 03/28/2016 7:14:35 PM PDT by freedomcrusader (Proudly wearing the politically incorrect label "crusader" since 1/29/2001)
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To: Innovative

Just what I can trust: The NYT diagnosing pubbie issues.


11 posted on 03/28/2016 7:23:35 PM PDT by bkopto
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To: bkopto

They’re closer to understanding the issue than the stupid GOPe.


12 posted on 03/28/2016 7:25:34 PM PDT by freedomcrusader (Proudly wearing the politically incorrect label "crusader" since 1/29/2001)
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To: freedomcrusader

Yes...one can hope. The repub-e needs Whigged.


13 posted on 03/28/2016 7:46:30 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?.)
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To: ameribbean expat

All I know is I got tired of Republicans talking like conservatives then acting like moderates. Or worse. I have no idea how a political party can be so strong at the state level and so completely ineffective at the national level. But the GOP has certainly managed it.>>> no i’m pissed because the republican party has reviled the tea party and it’s own base me. and said i don’t matter in elections screw you gope.


14 posted on 03/28/2016 7:47:47 PM PDT by kvanbrunt2
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To: Innovative

They lost their voters by refusing to stand for the rule of law and the citizens.

Instead they side with illegal aliens and their employers at every opportunity.


15 posted on 03/28/2016 8:34:01 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Know Islam, No peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: Innovative

It’s also the white collared Republicans, small business owners, etc. plus a lot of disaffected Democrats and Independents.


16 posted on 03/28/2016 8:35:04 PM PDT by Read Write Repeat
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To: Innovative

It’s really not hard to see why the GOP-e lost conservatives. They wanted to import illegals in the name of cheap labor and under the deluded fantasy that they would vote Republican (hint: they don’t), and conservatives have had enough of importing criminals into our country to mooch off our already bloated welfare system. Now they’re having a big cry over the fact that everyone is either supporting the true conservative Trump or the unapologetic Bolshevists in the Dementocrat Party.


17 posted on 03/28/2016 8:45:19 PM PDT by Objective Scrutator (All liberals are criminals, and all criminals are liberals)
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To: Objective Scrutator
the unapologetic Bolshevists in the Dementocrat Party.

Yeah, after the first Democrat debate Cruz described it as a debate between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

18 posted on 03/28/2016 9:19:15 PM PDT by libertylover (The problem with Obama is not that his skin is too black, it's that his ideas are too RED.)
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To: Gene Eric

I’ve been reading some indicators that a good candidate to challenge Ryan may emerge— make him hide behind the wall his multi-millionaire wife bought him in Wisconsin and see how much America despises RYNO. Failing a primary, it would be delicious revenge to replace this pusillanimous traitor with a Democrat!


19 posted on 03/29/2016 6:12:28 AM PDT by Mamzelle
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To: Innovative
How the G.O.P. Elite Lost Its Voters to Donald Trump

By becoming Democrat lite!

20 posted on 03/29/2016 8:18:00 AM PDT by JimRed (Is it 1776 yet? TERM LIMITS, now and forever! Build the Wall, NOW!)
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