Understanding Donald Trump Supporters
Happy Super Tuesday everybody.
Over the past several months, we’ve witnessed as time and time again, Donald Trump says whatever he wants and his lead isn’t affected. Better yet, he manages to somehow grow an even larger lead after he is publicly attacked by the media, social media and the rest of the country. He’s called Mexicans “rapists”, called for a ban on Muslims and even attempted to seem a little confused on who David Duke is (Former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan). And each and every time, he is called out for it by the media in the harshest of ways. When we see this media backlash, we, as millennials, rush to our Twitter and Facebook accounts hoping to share the memes that are sure to be made about how bad Trump is. And, I’ve got to be honest; we do a really good job of humiliating this man. In the comments section, there isn’t much support found for Trump as it is mostly people doubling down on their hatred for the bigot. Then, we wait. We wait for the seemingly inevitable drop in his support. But instead, as he has proven countless times in this election season, he is unfazed by the attacks. Rather than his downfall, we get breaking news from CNN that his lead has grown an extra 2 or 3 points.
And the big question that no one seems to be able to understand is… HOW?
Since no one seems to know how, I’ll take a crack at it. The simplest explanation I can come up with is this; Trump supporters do not give a crap about all of the bad things the media or anyone making up memes in their dorm room has to say about him. Trump, regardless of what the media might tell you, is an extremely gifted politician. Early on in this race, from his very first interview where he labeled Mexicans as “rapists and criminals” he was pandering towards a very specific group of people. That group is the Silent Majority. This is a large number of people in the U.S., particularly the white, evangelistic voters of the southern states. Everything that Trump has done has basically been done for them, in my opinion.
Trump’s entire platform revolves around this idea of “Make America Great Again”. For the Silent Majority, anything else he says is basically filler. They hear this message and are immediately flooded with memories of a U.S. pre-Obama. And while we may not see that America as “great”; they do and that’s all that matters. They’re reminded of the times when America didn’t act on social issues quickly, when Presidents spoke their mind and didn’t give in to political correctness and when America wasn’t trailing China in certain economic categories. Now, not all of this is because of Obama but a lot of these concerns have been raised under his administration. For the Silent Majority, Trump is someone who understands their ideals and wants to bring them out of the shadows and back into the foreground. Under President Obama, the Silent Majority was widely ignored as Obama dealt with other issues. This group wasn’t a priority to him and it’s showing in this election season. They are out in force to find their perfect candidate. And Trump is feeding them all of the attention that they want and they are eating it up and backing him with unheard of loyalty.
As far as the media and memes are concerned, there’s an explanation for that as well. The Silent Majority is a group that has been ridiculed and bashed by the media in recent years (8 or so). So everything that the media puts on Trump is another way of trying to put them down and, instead of losing him support, it actually inspires his supporters even more to fight back against the establishment. And his supporters are typically older white men and women so either they don’t see the memes made by millennials or they just don’t care about our opinion since they dislike us as much as the media. They think that we’re making America weak with our political correctness, Starbucks and participation trophies.
Donald Trump is more than likely going to be the nominee at this point in the race. He doesn’t just have the Silent Majority’s votes either. If you don’t want to see him in the White House in 2017, here are a couple things to consider:
1.) Mass Media/GOP Establishment: Stop posting attacks and rumors about Trump
– Every time you attack Trump you give him a reason to sidetrack. He gets as much time as he wants to address the attack and avoid talking about actual issues. I don’t think he’s talked about a single issue since he announced he was running for President. Get him to talk about issues so we can see how informed he actually is. Enough with the 24/7 airtime too.
2.) Social Media: Stop harassing Trump supporters with hate-filled memes and comments
– Every time you attack his supporters for their “low intelligence” or “racism” you fuel them even more. You give them the motivation to go out there and convert people to the Trump Train. And let’s be real, you’re not doing much to swing votes to your candidate. (And no, sharing memes about Bernie Sanders isn’t enough)
We can only blame ourselves if Donald Trump is elected President in November.
Young Politics 2016 